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BORN IN BETHLEHEM, N. J., MARCH 30, 1814. 
DIED IN BROOKLYN, N. Y. , MAY 20, 1881. 



THE END OF THE AGES; 

with Forecasts of the approaching 

Political, Social and Religious 

Reconstruction of 

AMERICA AND THE WORLD. 



BY 

/ 

: / 
V 

William Fishbough. 



MDCCCXCIX. 

CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

25 Park Place, New York. 



THE LIBRARY j 

OF CONGRESS 

WASHIMGTON 



29310 



Copyright iJ 



Mrs. John A. Walker. 



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" By measure hath he measured the times, and by number 
hath he numbered the times; and he doth not move nor stir 
them until the said measure be fulfilled. " 11. Esdras IV. 37. 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away." St. John. 
Rev. XXI. 



PREFACE. 



The present volume is a record of thoughts and discoveries 
that have been accumulating during a period of more than 
thirty years. It is believed that the proper time for its pub- 
lication has arrived, and that its philosophizings, monitions and 
warnings as well as its hopeful pictures of the near future will 
now be received as they could not have been during any an- 
terior and less ripened condition of the minds of the world. 

The author has no apology to make for the apparently pre- 
tentious title page which he has chosen. The book is intended 
to be all that the title implies; and whether, in this respect, it 
is a success or a failure, can only be judged after a careful and 
candid perusal. Many things new to all readers and some 
things not a little startling, will be found in these pages; but 
the accompanying rational and mathematical proofs of the po- 
sitions taken, will, it is hoped, be sufficient to shield the author 
from every suspicion of aiming at mere sensation. 

The volume is placed before a scrutinizing and candid public 
with much hope, little fear, and with an unbounded desire for 
the outworking of the great and beneficent uses for America 
AND THE WORLD, an exposition of which will be found in its 
pages. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC; ITS GROWTH OF A HUNDRED YEARS, AND WHAT 

OF ITS FUTURE? 

Survey of the past — Our logbook and dead reckoning one hundred years ago, 
and now — Wonderful growth — Caution against self-complacency — Warn- 
ings of History — Lessons of the Hebrew Republic — The Grecian Democ- 
racies — The Republics of Rome, Switzerland, Italy, South America — We 
are floating down the same stream — Approaching crisis— Whither are we 
drifting ? — Looking out for judgment — Objects of this work — Guides of our 
inquiries — Evolution as indefinitely held by scientists — Evolution in definite 
gradations — Evolution in musical octaves — The science of universal 
correspondences — The numbers 7, 12, and 3 furnish the golden key to 
unlock mysteries, ...----- Pages 1-13 

CHAPTER II. 

A NE\yLY DISCOVERED LAW OF CYCLES IN HISTORY; AND OUR POSITION IN 

TIME THENCE DETERMINED. 

CYCLES OF HISTORY NO. I. — THE CYCLE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 

Discovery of the Law of cycles in history — Many years' fruitless search — 
Arbitrary divisions of time eschewed, and natural ones alone regarded; 
Discovery of twelve year waves; their demonstration — I. Revohitionary 
and C/ifl^^zV period, 1776-1788; Articles of Confederation; Their failure; 
Convention in 1787 — II. The Organizing ^&x\oA, 1788-1800; Constitution 
of U. S. Government organized under it. Washington President; Old 
Federal party — III. The 7>j-//«^ period, 1800-1812; Localization of gov- 
ernment at Washington; Intrigues of the Mother country — IV. The 
Median period, 1812-1824; War with England; A higher status acquired; 
Opposition to Slavery, Era of good feeling in politics; Visit of LaFayette 
— V. Period of Ideas and Aspirations, 1824-1836; Political and religious 
segregations; Free Schools; Railroads; Inventions; Speculations — VI. 
Period of i^rmte^if, 1 836-1 848 — Magnetic Telegraph; War with Mexico 



VI THE END OF THE AGES. 

in the interest of slavery; circle of civilization round the globe completed 
— VII. Period of Ripeness, 1S48-1860 — Wheat and tares; Free soil party; 
Failure of compromise between Liberty and Slavery; Repeal of Missouri 
compromise — Troubles in Kansas — Republican party organized; Author's 
prediction of quasi national death in i860; Election of President Lincoln 
— Secession and Rebellion, ------- 14—23 

CHAPTER III. 

CYCLES IN HISTORY NO. II. — FIRST COLONIAL CYCLE, l6o8-l6g2. 

Discovery of the Cycles of Colonial History — Period I., 1608-1620; Settlement 
on the James River in 1607-8 — Three times seven times twelve years to 
1776 — II., — 1620-1632: Landing of the Mayflower in 1620; Sojourn in 
Holland the previous 12 years — III., 1632-1644: Charter of Maryland to 
Lord Baltimore in 1632 — Large emigration and colonization at various 
points; Governmental order; First confederation of New England 
colonies — IV., 1644-1656: Charter of Rhode Island — Religious liberty; 
The Cromwellian Commonwealth; Restrictive acts of Parliament; Repub- 
licanization — V., 1656-1668: Religious denominations; "Colonies al- 
ready hardened into republics" — VI., 1668-1680: England's right to tax 
colonies denied — VII., Characteristics of an End; General extinction of 
Colonial charters; English Revolution, ----- 24-33 

CHAPTER IV. 

CYCLES OF HISTORY NO. III. — SECOND COLONIAL. CYCLE, 1692-I776. 

Struggles for empire in America — Effects on the Colonies — Period I., 1692- 
1704: New Charter to Massachusetts; Extension of territory but with 
curtailed privileges; New beginning — Causes of alienation — Controversy 
about salaries of governors — Forebodings of Colonial revolt — II., 1704- 
1716: First American Newspaper — Oueen Anne's War — Educating the 
colonies to self-reliance — III., 1716-1728: Government of Maryland 
restored to Lord Baltimore — New Orleans settled by French — Designs of 
French in the West — IV., 1728-1740: Completion of the number of 
Colonies that subsequently fought in the Revolution — Birth of the leading 
spirits of that struggle — V., 1740-1752: Cordon of French forts in the 
West; War between England and France, and Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; 
"Ohio company" formed — VI., 1 752-1 764: New complications; The 
"French and Indian War" — Expulsion of the French from all America 
except Louisiana, in 1763 — British Supremacy — Fruitage — VII., 1764- 
1776: Seeds of revolution in oppressive acts of Parliament; Discontent 
and fermentation — British troops fire on Boston citizens; Cargoes of tea 
destroyed — Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill — -Reflections and 
summing up of evidence — "Eureka!" ----- 34-41 



THE END OF THE AGES. VU 

CHAPTER V. 

CYCLE OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, ITS GRADED SUB-CYCLES, AND WHEN 

CLOSED. 

Another long and discouraging search — New unit of 252 years — First Period, 
1-252: The chaotic and propagating Period — Declining Roman Empire 
and irruption of Barbarians — Significant Confederation of Frank tribes — 
Second Period, 252-504: The period of forms and transformations; Con- 
version of Constantine; Clovis, victorious and converted, becomes the first 
French monarch; whole French nation converted — This ends the period — 
Third Period, 504-756: Power and dominion acquired; Pope of Rome 
declared universal Bishop; His temporal power established by Pepin,. 
King of France in 756 — Fourth Period, 756-1008: Events character- 
istic of the period; The church and the world; The dark age; Light from 
a non-Christian quarter — Abderaman, the Moor, founds a kingdom in 
Spain, also in 756 — Arts and sciences cultivated by the Moors and dis- 
seminated through Europe during subsequent centuries; Empire of Char- 
lemagne; Feudalism — Checks on the power of kings; Origin of baronial 
castles; Equilibration; Quasi republic of co-equal barons; Modern Europ- 
ism rises from old Romanism; Panic concerning the end of the world — 
Fifth Period, 1008-1260: Tendencies to rise; Ambition of Popes; The 
crusades; The good incidentally accomplished thereby; Local schools 
formed; Revival of learning; Chivalry; Elevation of the common people; 
Popular combinations; Origin of civic Republics; Levantine commerce; 
Magna Charta; English House of Commons established in 1258; Corre- 
spondence to other fifths; Papal power the bond of the Christian world — 
Sixth Period, 1260-1512: Decline of papal power over kings; Philip 
the Fair rebukes Boniface VIII. — Origin of the "great schism;" Ecclesias- 
tical arts and adornments; Cathedrals; The church sinks into a moral stu- 
por; Academies, colleges and universities; Libraries; Art of Printing; Civil 
and social conditions improve; A "tiers etat;" The Hanseatic League; 
Improvements in navigation; The magnetic needle and the stars as guides; 
Dreams of Columbus; His Discovery of America; Significant ending of 
the Sixth Period — Seventh Period, 1512-1764: A crisis necessitating 
a change; Vices and crimes of the popes and corruption of the Roman 
Church; Threat of Louis XII.; Reform Councils called at Pisa in 1511 
and in Rome in 1512; These fruitless; Sale of indulgences; Luther aroused 
and the religious revolution inaugurated; The philosophy of this great 
change; Why the year 1764 was the fitting period of the close — Disclosures 
of Swedenborg — Era of Science; Priestly; Herschel; Mesmer; Gall and 
Spurzheim; Hutton; Werner; La Place; Hahnemann; Daguerre; Morse; 
Kerchoff and Bunsen — Spectroscope, ----- 42-73 



Viii THE END OF THE AGES. 

CHAPTER VI. 

DISCOVERY OF AN ANTERIOR CYCLE IN THE MODERN SERIES 1524-I608. 

A suggestive error which led to an important truth; True order of the Series; 
The Republic of 1776-1860, a. Fourth instead of a Thit'd — Luther's Decla- 
ration of Independence from Rome in 1524 commences the First modern 
■cycle — First Period, 1524-1536: Luther in swinging loose from Rome, 
is followed by several German Princes — New structure of religious and 
political society commenced; Peasants' War; Anabaptist prophets; Diets 
assembled by Emperor Charles V., to consider case of Reformers; End of 
12 years finds the Pope, Paul III., on the defensive; Overthrow of Papal 
power in England — Second Period, 1536-1548: Council of Trent — War 
against Reformers with unfavorable results to latter — "Articles of the In- 
terim;" Question in the hands of the Secular Power — Pope concedes that 
reforms are needed — Third Period, 1548-1560: "Articles of the Interim" 
unsatisfactory to both parties — Council of Trent revived — Ambitious de- 
signs of the Emperor: Battle of Inspruck; Emperor defeated and com- 
pelled to accede to conditions securing religious liberty in Germany — Em- 
peror abdicates, leaving his son Philip king of Spain and the Netherlands, 
as Philip 11. — Philip devolves the government of Netherlands on his sister, 
with Granvalla her minister — Fourth Period, 1560-1572: Character- 
istics of a Fourth— Spanish Inquisition in Holland — Its cruelties provoke 
resistance; Granvalla replaced by Alva; Thousands sacrificed and rebellion 
provoked — William I. of Orange — Church of England crystallized; Dis- 
sentients, taking the name of Puritans, organize in 1566, the middle of the 
cycle — Fifth Period, 1572-1584: Massacre of the night of St. Bartholo- 
mew; Fleet of 150 privateers, always successful against Spanish — William 
I. sovereign commander over four provinces; Other Netherland provinces 
unite — The Holland Republic proclaimed; William assassinated in 1584 — 
Sixth Period, 1584-1596: Prince Maurice, William's successor, an accom- 
plished general; Takes Breda by surprise and delivers four provinces — 
Constantly victorious till Spanish power was broken — Aid from England; 
Defeat of the "Invincible Armada."— Seventh Period, 1596-1608: 
Ripening seeds; Prosperity of Holland and decline of Spanish power — 
Suspension of arms and negotiations opened in 1607 — Peace of 12 years 
declared in 1609 — Spain expels Morescoes, - - - - 74-8? 



CHAPTER VII. 

Review of Methods and Summary of Results — Characteristics of the plan pur- 
sued; No human contrivance; An intelligent and divine plan; The 
Logos or word of God — Human history as well as all things in nature, a 
garment of God, --------- 88-92 



THE END OF THE AGES. IX 

CHAPTER VIII. 

TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY INCIDENTALLY DISCLOSED. 

History a jumble as now studied — Law of cycles confirmed by other facts — 
Periodical movements in universal nature — From millionths of seconds to 
millions of years — Teaching history by chronological and cyclic charts — 

93-96 

CHAPTER IX. 

CORROBORATIVE FACTS IN ANTERIOR HISTORY. 

History anterior to Christ; The three times fourteen generations of Matt. I. 
17; The number 42 a remarkable number; Its occurrence in Egyptian 
theology; 42 journeys of the Israelities; 42 phrenological faculties — 
These in pairs making 84; Square of 42 equals 1764 — The third of that 
588, the number of years from Babylonish captivity to Christ — Curious 
divisors, quotients and numerical correlations, . . . 97-103 

CHAPTER X. 

THE SUMMIT OF THE AGES AND SURVEY THENCE OF CATHOLIC AND PROT- 
ESTANT CHRISTENDOM. 

Dominant Ideas; Religion supreme — Catholicism the supreme standard in the 
past — It has been preeminently the Church; Protestantism a transitional 
movement, rooted in, and rising out of the Catholic Cycle; Its sects so 
many roots of a new Tree; Protestant changes since 1764; Catholicism 
standing still; Seeking universal dominion; Reaching after worldly power; 
This consistent with her principles; Her movements to be watched; Her 
wonderful persistence explained; Swedenborg on Last Judgment; Her 
end or radical change in the near future; Another hint of this from the law 
of numbers — The number of recognized popes to 1764; The number 
of popes since 1764; Her day of grace 120 years, like that of the ante- 
diluvians; Spiritual republicanization will save her; Tendencies opposed 
to her present policy all powerful; Yet she defies them ; Exalts faith over 
reason; Ecumenical Council of 1870; Declaration of Papal infallibility: 
Same day, France declares war against Germany — Withdrawal of troops 
from Rome; Napoleon III. a prisoner; Overthrow of Pope's temporal 
power; A terrible rebuke — Reflections; Peter and his "rock;" Truth 
mightier; Church's usefulness in the past; Obstructing truth, she becomes 
a power of evil; Then "come out from her my p6ople" — The fairer struc- 
ture, and true Holy Catholic Church of the future; The upshot of the 
chapter, ---------- 104-125 



X THE END OF THE AGES. ' 

CHAPTER XI. 

COINCIDENT CLOSING OF OUR NATIONAL CYCLE, AND OF THE CYCLE OF THE 
WORLD, DEMONSTRATED BY FACTS AND PERIODIC NUMBERS. 

Our latitude and longitude; Whither drifting? Other predictions from the law 
of cycles; Acquiescence in the results of war, in 1872; Next Clymacteric 
period in 1884; Modified by conjunction of the Cycle of the world; 
A new aspect of the subject; The Race a Unit, and has its grand cycle; 
"Westward the tide of empire;" The circle now complete; The East and 
West united; Japanese embassadors in i860 and 1872; Root and fruit of 
the Tree of Humanity; Infancy in Eastern Asia- — Maturity in America; 
Periodicity of the world's cycle, and wonderfully confirmatory numbers; 
Seeds of a new and universal civilization; Reform must come first; The 
approximal time of the great change; Prophetic symbolism of the old 
Pyramid, - - - - - - - - - - 126-139 

CHAPTER XII. 

BIBLE PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE TIME OF THE END. 

Prophetic numbers in Daniel and the Apocalypse; The "abomination of desola- 
tion;" The "daily sacrifice;" The "holy place;" The Temple — (withmean- 
ings) — The "princes of the Gentiles" and worldly rule contrasted with the 
"Kingdom not of this world;" When was the "abomination of desolation" 
set up? — Pope Pelagius II. claims supreme dignity; Gregory the Great, 
and Boniface III. renew the claim — The tyrant Phocas confirms; "Anti- 
christ, the man of sin;" Invisible government of the church not extinct; 
The two witnesses; Even the secularized papacy overruled for good; Be- 
ginning and close of the numbers and periods; Approximate agreement 
with the old pyramid index, ------- 140-149 

CHAPTER XIII. 

OUR NATIONAL IDEA. 

Ideas of primeval and despotic nations defined; Their progress traced; Ideas on 
which the American Republic was founded; National Independence, and 
Equal Rights of Man; These all worked up and actualized; At present, 
without a distinctive Idea; A national body without a national soul; Hence 
a state of political decay, tending to anarchy or despotism; No hope from 
existing political parties; Wanted, a new Idea — Onward! Onward! 

150-159 
CHAPTER XIV. 

CAN AMERICA GO ONWARD IN HER PRESENT COURSE WITHOUT FINAL AND 
CERTAIN DISRUPTION? 

Success of our Government in the past; Its structure admirable in some re- 
spects, defective in others; Folly of unqualified suffrage; Corruptions 



THE END OF THE AGES. XI 

thence arising; Bribery by official patronage; Bar-room cliques and primary 
elections; Legislation bought and sold; All departments demoralized; 
Decline of respect towards law-makers and laws; Thence corruptions in 
social life; Fashionable Christianity; Have we any statesmen? Defects in 
our educational system; Our political body diseased; Can we go on in this 
way? The answer formed in the public conscience; Black Friday and 
financial depression; Discontent of workingmen; Trades Unions and 
strikes; Forebodings of change; The "good ne%v" times, rather than the 
"good old" times — "Wanted, a new political Idea," - - 160—170 

CHAPTER XV. 

LABOR THROES THAT PRECEDE THE NEW POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BIRTH. 

The New Idea eternally IS, and must be discovered, not contrived; The as- 
cended Spirit of the Old; Slavery destroyed, and the spirit of Liberty in- 
spiring all; Laboring population becoming restive; Trades Unions; Their 
mistakes and inconsistencies; Injustices to non-society men; Injury to them- 
selves; War with capital; Threats of violence; Hostility against what they 
. would like to be and do themselves; Kesponsibilities of the wealthy; Poverty 
and suffering widespread; Prayers of the poor will be heard; Riotous 
passions; French Revolution; July riots of 1877; Communism and its 
menaces; Terrible possibilities of destruction; Such a coup imminent; The 
iron-heeled despot conditionally invoked ; Yet, ' ' Wanted — A New National 
Idea,'' .-.-..-... 1 71-185 

CHAPTER XVI. 

IS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REFORM POSSIBLE WITHOUT ORGANIC CHANGE? 

Existing evils not merely functional, but organic; Our primary movements in 
politics; Nominations necessary to elections; Caucuses and primary 
elections; Nominations generally controlled by selfish tricksters; No remedy 
for this under present system; Bad nominations practically more than half 
disfranchise good citizens; Ultimate rootlets of government in the rum 
shop; Foulness and disease thence to the whole body; The national ship in 
the trough of the sea; Citizens' Associations ineffective as means of reform 
and why? — The question heading the chapter, answered. No! — How of 
social evils? — Effects of preaching virtue; Organic instrumentalities neces- 
sary; Some reformers and their theories; Plausible, but will not work; Hope 
of finding our way out, ----... 186-195 

CHAPTER XVII. 

IS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC THE HIGHEST FORM OF 
GOVERNMENT THAT IS POSSIBLE ? 

The Sphynx riddle; The question to be candidly met; The force that under 
lies all progress; God is "knowable" in degrees; Natural gradations 



Xll THE END OF THE AGES. 

of society to be traced: I., Savagism — Fetichism — How originated; Its true 
side; Its superstitious side; II., Barbarism — Polytheism or Manitouism; 
Tribal relations; How originated; III., Despotism — Sovereignism — How 
originated; A God simply of power; hence a government of power; IV., The 
Crude or Demi-Republic — Jehovism — A God of Justice and Mercy; 
Government after this type; V., The Ascending or Progressive Re- 
public — Paternism; (Christ's Teachings; God the Universal Father; 
Union with him — Many members of one Body; Christ preached to 
spirits in prison; Church also descended into hells of the dark ages; It 
works from bottom to top of whole scale of humanity; Bottom depths 
reached in middle of cycle; Gradual emergence thence; Gradations up- 
ward; Return of Husbandman to his Vineyard; Second coming of 
Christ — "Paternism" complemented by Fraternism — Infidelity organizes 
nothing; It merely disintegrates; Foundation of the Fifth order, '"The 
Ascending or Progressive Republic; VI. The Universal and Harmonic 
Republic; VII., The Spiritual Commune — Communism possible only 
at the bottom and top ends of the scale — Types of the Commune in the 
past and present, -_-...-. 196-215 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

traces of the path that leads onward. 

Previous proofs that we cannot go onward without change; Certainty that there 
is a way out; This must h& found, not contrived; Next stage a Fifth in the 
Scale of Seven; Functions and correspondences of Fifths — Complementary 
relations in the scale; Argument thence; Present 84 year subcycle answer- 
ing to period from 1008 to 1260; Urban Republics and cooperative guilds; 
Hints from these; Our present 84 year subcycle a fifth m\h^ cycle of 
modern history — Strength of the argument; Traces of the path begin to 
appear, ---.-..-.- 216-225 

CHAPTER XIX. 

analysis of social elements as preliminary to the question of 

reconstruction. 

The Body Politic a Man; Its primary ingredients and tissues; Seven correlative 
degrees present now and always; These degrees described and illustrated 
in their serial order; They constitute the sum total of human qualities; 
Their gradations relative, and each susceptible of infinite improvement, 
We have them representatively in our individual selves; Shakespeare's 
"Seven Ages;" No absolute equality; Superior and subordinate autono- 
mies; Room relatively for kings and princes in every class, - 226-237 



THE END OF THE AGES. Xlll 

CHAPTER XX. 

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE TRUE BODY POLmC. 

Knowledge of it necessary to diagnosis and remedy; Nature persistently inter- 
rogated; The. grand divisions of the political organs and functions de- 
scribed; Raw Material; Mechanics and Manufactures; Distribution or com- 
merce; Money and its laws of distribution and circulation; Exaltation, re- 
finement and beautification of all things; Wisdom and its offices in the 
Body Politic; Spirituality; God in the Constitution, - - 238-254 

CHAPTET XXI. 

CLASSIFICATION OF ORGANIZABLE AND CORRELATIVE GUILDS. 

Working forces of these several departments; These almost self-defined; Enu- 
merated in serial order; Their offices; Progress and interchangeability of 
positions — Each in the position for which nature fits him, - 255-260 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THIS SYSTEM TESTED AND CONFIRMED BY FARTHER HARMONIOUS CORRELA- 
TIONS, AND CORRESPONDENCES IN NATURE AND HISTORY. 

Previous classifications all inclusive; Social machinery proved; Additional and 
special correspondences — With the nutritive system; Mouth and teeth of the 
Grand Man to be specially cared for; The gross divisions of the anatomy, 
from feet upward; The political feet to be tenderly cared for — Correspond- 
ence with the senses; With the mental faculties; With the animal kingdom 
beneath man; Absolute harmony of the Series; Mutual necessities of its 
parts; Many members and one Body, as in the Christian Church; The 
Community responsible for crime; Crime would soon cease under such an 
organization, --------- 261-268 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE TRUE POLITICAL GOVERNMENT, AND HOW IT 
MAY BE ORGANIZED. 

Harmony of interests secured; No hope in existing parties; Proposed new 
basis of Representation — Declaration for the new departure; Sources of 
Interest Representation, and how available; Proposed new Primary 
movements; Guilds represented at nominating Conventions; How the 
machinery would work and with what results; An objection answered; 
The rights of women; No present change in organic laws needed, 

269-281 



XIV THE END OF THE AGES. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

BRIEF REVIEW OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION AND THE TERRIBLE 
WARNINGS IT CONTAINS. 

Disorders enumerated; Present institutions powerless to correct them; Two 
pictures of the future; No time to be lost, - - - - 282-286 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE NEW NATIONAL IDEA DEFINED, AND THE NEW DECLARATION. 

We have found it; NEW declaration; What think ye? — Objections answered; 
The times demand moral heroes, - - ■- - - - 287-295 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

How shall we begin the work of reorganization ? — Chaos the mother of form — 
Organizing law of the universe the same everywhere; The egg; All organi- 
zation has here its representative processes; Stages of embryotic formation 
traced; Ripened minds of the age constitute the new society ovum; How 
organic form may be gestated from these; Propaganda and campaign or- 
ganized; Contrast of new and old platforms; superior dignity and moral 
force of the New; Success certain at least after a few experimental defeats; 
Then onward to victory! .--.... 296-306 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

what may be and will be DONE UNDER THE NEW POLITICAL ORGANIZA- 
TION. 

Farther characteristics of a Government thus organized; Farther action will 
suggest itself; What legislation may do; True laws are, and are not 
man-made ; Registration by classes; Autonomies and chartered rights; 
Police surveillance; Boards of statistics; Overstocking and understock- 
ing; Financial problems easily solved; Graduated taxation; Study of 
correspondences; Antagonisms supplanted by sympathies; Religious 
fraternity; Crime and poverty ceased, and prisons and poorhouses 
closed — Retrospect of the path of argument; The two paths of the future, 
and whither leading; The new Age, and fifth stage of civilization; 
Visions of Glory — Then forward! ----- 307-319 



THE END OF THE AGES, XV 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PRESENT PERPLEXITY OF ALL NATIONS AND THE ONLY WAY OUT OF IT. 

All nations disturbed and anxious; Causes of the same — Discontent of masses 
— Repression fails — World's great year closed; Harvest time of old In- 
stitutions; Reconstruction needed; Remedies found in natural laws; 
Indifferent whether Kings or Presidents bear rule, when JN'ature rules all; 
No disloyalty in the plans ; Bad men disturbers; Moral sentiment in the 
ascendant, if organized; The "healing of the nations;" The "New 
Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," - . . . 320-325 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

WHAT NATION SHALL LEAD? — AND THE GRAND PROCESSION THAT WILL 
FOLLOW IN THE ROAD TO THE UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC. 

Hint from the Centennial Exhibition; Correlation of Races and Nations — 
Anglo-Saxon Race with its ingredients; Elements of universality; Hence 
its power to permeate; Extensive geographical dominions; Seeds of new 
Republics and civilizations; Lost tribes of Israel; American Branch of 
Anglo-Saxon Race; The Race sublimated and farther universalized; Now 
hand in hand with England, America must furnish the Central Idea j Must 
sound the trumpet of the Jubilee; Mission oi France, Germany and Italy — 
Triune specialties and future tripartite Republic; Russia and her mission; 
Japan and her mission; These seven great nations the active forces; Aux- 
iliary and subordinate nations; Negative nationalities; America to sound 
the march; Why others must follow; The Universal Republic of Nations; 
The world's Star of Hope, ------- 326-341 

CHAPTER XXX. 

BASIC OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. — PART I. 

Religion a necessity of society; A Universal Religion necessary to Universal 
Union; Search for its principles; Supposed Universal Council of Chris- 
tians, Buddhists, Mohammedans, etc.; Jargon of discussion; On the 
point of disruption; The "Gray-haired Scribe" called to the platform; 
His prayer; His discourse; i. Concerning the existing forms of religion; 
2. Specialties and careers of religious systems; A higher and better one 
than all of them now needed; 3. Resources of written revelation; 4. All 
parts of the scheme mutually consistent; Appeals to the Book of Nature; 
5. How to read it — Correspondences; Lessons — I. Law of gravitation, 
physical and moral — II. Heat and Light — Love and Wisdom; These 
teach the broadest outlines of the Universal religion ; The speaker takes 
his seat but is urged and consents to go on, - - - - 342-356 



XVI THE END OF THE AGES. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

BASIC OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. — PART II. 
SPECIAL DOCTRINES AND MORAL LESSONS. 

III. Moral responsibility taught by planetary laws; IV. Lessons of subor- 
dinate centers and orbits — Principalities, powers etc. ; Parents and chil- 
dren; V. Lessons of diversities of degrees, and progress; VI. Lessons 
of comets; VII. Extra orbital motions; VIII. Eclipses, Lenses, Re- 
flectors — Priests, Pastors and Teachers; IX. Consequences of non-recog- 
nition of a common center of gravity; Atheism uncenters and disinte- 
grates; Universal non-religion would be universal social chaos, 357-370 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Basic OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION — PART III. 
SOME HIGHER MYSTERIES DISCLOSED. 

The speaker urged to still continue his discourse; X. Concernhig the Eternal 
Creative, Generative and Regenerative Logos, Word or Wisdom; Nebular 
theory; Sevenfold order of Creation; XL Divine embodivients in mat- 
ter in the process of creation; Eternal Dualism; Origin of Evil; Ground 
of Correspondences; A pause, and canvass of t?he audience; The speaker 
urged still to continue; XII. Divine Incarnation or the Logos made flesh; 
Characteristics and titles of the Divine. Man; XIII. Concerning Vicariates 
Atonement; True and false views of this doctrine; XIV. Salvation, and 
in what does it consist ? Prejudice aroused, and small parties secede from 
the council; Criticisms and the gray-haired Scribe's answer; He con- 
tinues; XV. Prayer; XVI. Individual and social worship; XVII. The 
Universal Hierarchy — Conclusion of the gray-haired Scribe's discourse; 
Conclusion of the book, ---.... 371-392 



CHAPTER I. 

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC; ITS GROWTH OF A HUNDRED YEARS, 
AND WHAT OF ITS FUTURE ? 

Survey of the past — Our logbook and dead reckoning one hundred years ago, 
and now — Wonderful growth — Caution against self-complacency — Warn- 
ings of History — Lessons of the Hebrew Republic — The Grecian Democ- 
racies — The Republics of Rome, Switzerland, Italy, South America — We 
are floating down the same stream — Approaching crisis — Whither are we 
drifting ? — Looking out for judgment — Objects of this work — Guides of our 
inquiries — Evolution as indefinitely held by scientists — Evolution in definite 
gradations — Evolution in musical octaves — The science of universal 
correspondences — The numbers 7, 12, and 3 furnish the golden key to 
unlock mysteries. 

npHE design of the present work, as will be seen, quite trans- 
-*- cends the special concerns of the American nation and 
people. Nevertheless it is to you, my countrymen, that I make 
my first and loudest appeal. I will first ask you to accompany 
me in a brief survey of the past of our Republic, and of some of 
the significant aspects of the present, so that we may intelli- 
gently consider the preparatives for that crisis of change in the 
near future of which the laws of nature and all present signs 
and tendencies seem to forewarn us. 

As manners on the sea of national life, let us consult our log 
book, work up our dead reckoning, observe the position of the 
stars, and keep up all due vigilance to avoid the breakers that 
may lie in our course. If the past has had its triumphs, the 
present is pregnant with both opportunities and perils; and it 

1 



2 THE END OF THE AGES. 

is for US to extract from all the lessons of wisdom that which 
will guide us safely onward. 

One hundred years ago we were a population of barely three 
millions, struggling through poverty, and blood, and fire, to 
grasp the prize of national independence. Now we number 
more than sixty millions, with a territory three thousand miles 
wide; with a soil and climate consisting of all desirable varie- 
ties; with mineral resources well nigh boundless; with navi- 
gable rivers hundreds and even thousands of miles long; w^ith a 
net-work of railroads and telegraph wires covering the whole 
surface of the land; with populous cities strung along all the 
great trunk lines of travel; with a commerce whitening every 
sea; with educational institutions among the best in the world, 
and accessible to all classes of our people; with a genius for 
invention and discovery that stands unrivaled; with a develop- 
ment in the arts and sciences equal if not superior to anything 
presented by the nations of the old world; and with ideas and 
institutions which arrest the attention and secure the profound 
respect of the philosophers and men of science in all the 
nations of the earth. How proud was America on her late 
centennial year in witnessing the representatives of the arts 
and sciences, and the stages of progress in civilization, attained 
by each and all the nations of the earth, collected upon her 
shores, and in perceiving that she herself, although so young 
was fully equal to the best of them! And how it opened to 
the patriotic sons and daughters of our Republic, the visions 
of glory strewed along the path of our future progress for the 
hundred years to come ! 

But let us not be too self-complacent. Rapid progress, if 
not wisely directed, may be attended with violentcollisions and 
an over-weening pride is usually the mother of humiliation. 
Thus Nebuchadnezzar, walking in his palace, mused with him- 



THE END OF THE AGES. 3 

self: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built, for the 
house of the Kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the 
honor of my majesty ?" But it is recorded that while these 
words were yet in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from 
Heaven, saying: "The kingdom is departed from thee;" and 
the sequel was that the presumptuous monarch was driven from 
the habitations of men, and made a companion for the beasts 
of the field. 

Nations, as well as individuals, have their birth, infancy, de- 
velopment, maturity, and reach their final crises of change by 
a succession of gradations prescribed by natural law; and it 
depends upon the answer to the question how much of the 
divine elements of immortal life a nation has in its institutions 
and laws, and the practices of its rulers and people, whether 
that change shall bring humiliation, mortification, or even 
death, or whether it shall be a transition to a new and higher 
standard of national life, with a new and higher role to play in 
the great drama of history and civilization. 

But it is from the history of Republics that our special warn- 
ings are to be derived. There have been several of these and 
from each we inherit a lesson. The most ancient of these — 
that of the Hebrews under the Judges — continued in existence 
more than three centuries during which "every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes," being amenable only to the 
high courts in which differences between man and man were 
adjudicated according to the law of Moses; and thus, so long 
as social order prevailed, they enjoyed an amount of popular 
liberty equal to any of which our people can boast. But in 
the latter years of that political regime, disorders so multiplied, 
and the rights and interests of individuals and families became 
subject to such frequent and violent infringement, that the 
people clamored for a King; and the crude Republic instead 



4 THE END OF THE AGES. 

of taking a stand upon a higher system of political and social 
regulations, sank back into the form of a monarchy. 

The Democracies that were established in several of the 
Grecian states, in like manner degenerated into turbulent 
factions, destructive alike to public order and popular liberty, 
and were at length forced to succumb to the arm of power. 
The Roman Republic, so called, with its patricians and 
plebeians, its Consuls and Tribunes of the people, after a bril- 
liant career of some four hundred and eighty years, developing 
a large amount of personal virtue and public justice consider- 
ing the barbarism of the times, finally fell a victim to the 
ambition of rival political aspirants and conflicting popular 
factions, and was succeeded by an age of iron despotism. 

The Republic of Switzerland, originating in the 13th 
century, presents a different case. Entrenched in its mountain 
fastnesses, it has endured to the present day. Its population 
is homogeneous and loyal, but extremely conservative and 
immobile; and if the Swiss Republic gives promise of perma- 
nency for centuries to come, that promise is to be read more 
in the character of its people and the physical conditions of the 
country, than in the intrinsic nature and tendencies of Repub- 
lican Institutions, taken by themselves. 

From the smoke and carnage of Inquisitorial persecution 
arose the Republic of Holland late in the sixteenth century. 
Though not free from oligarchic and feudal elements, it became 
the asylum for the persecuted and oppressed of all lands; was 
the conservator of all the popular freedom that her own people 
desired; was prosperous and happy in her civil and economic 
affairs, and was, in some sense, the nidus in which our own in- 
fant Republic was incubated; but after filling an honorable 
career in the development of free ideas and institutions, she, 
too, went back to monarchy. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 5 

The little Republics which sprang up in Italy during the 
middle ages, and which were for the most part confined each 
to a city and a few square miles of surrounding territory, are 
not without their lessons, but they present no great landmarks 
worthy of much regard in shaping our own course. The ex- 
isting petty Republics of Central and South America are little 
more than loose, disorderly compacts, the prey of factions and 
ambitious demagogues, of no dignity, and subject to frequent 
and violent revolutions; and the principal lesson they afford us 
is, that no Republican Government, even, is desirable except 
that which rests upon the virtue and intelligence of its people. 

I see my own Government floating down the same stream 
which has borne nearly all the old Republics to the catastrophe 
of their dissolution. I see more than this : I see that at every ad 
vance on the downward course of time, the signs of some mysteri- 
ous and nearly approaching crisis increase in number, variety and 
significance. 1 confess it is with a trembling hand that I write 
the inquiry: "Whither are we drifting ? And what fate does 
the Future hold in her dark bosom for my own beloved land ?" 
This anxious query does not concern the ^//5/d!«/ future. There, 
all is bright. God made this country for Liberty, Fraternity 
and impartial Justice. Our mountains, and broad valleys, and 
interminable prairies will tolerate nothing short of these save, 
it may be, for a brief and transitional period. Usurpers and 
despots can not long breath the air of America and live, and 
anarchy can not be the permanent fate of a people so intelli- 
gent and virtuous. It is not the forecasting of probabilities in 
the generations to come, that gives us anxiety; but what of 
the events and changes that are nigh, even at our doors ? 

We are now in political and social conditions which every 
one must admit to be abnormal and not in accordance with the 
order of Heaven. It is self evident that these conditions can- 



6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

not persist forever, or even for any considerable number of years 
longer, for the whole infinite power of God, and all the divine 
harmonies of the surrounding universe, are arrayed against 
them. The change is only a question of time: and there is 
already in the minds of multitudes of the most thoughtful 
people, a certain foreboding of the climax of troubles — a 
certain "looking out for judgment" which may not be post- 
poned much longer. 

To show, with something like the clearness of a scientific 
demonstration, what is the present position of our own nation 
and its institutions in the scale of natural evolutions — thence 
incidentally also the position of all other nations; to forecast 
the next step in the order of onward movements, with some of 
the startling changes it will necessarily bring; to point a sug- 
gestive finger to the path by which the next higher degree in 
the scale of political and social evolutions may be attained 
without passing through the most direful convulsions and dis- 
orders; and to unfold the great central truths which, if duly 
regarded, will guide the nations of the earth into harmony and 
peace — shall be the great object of our endeavor in the present 
volume. 

GUIDES AND METHODS OF THE INQUIRY. 

The laws of nature as disclosed by science and philosophy, 
with such new statements of the same as we may be impelled 
to submit; the signs of the times, and the political, social and 
religious necessities of our own nation and of the world, shall 
constitute our chief guides in the course of inquiry which lies 
before us. 

Among the natural indices to which we shall have special 
recourse for guidance, the law or doctrine of "Evolution," so 
called, with certain seemingly necessary modifications of the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 7 

Statements in which it has been put forth to the world, will be 
held conspicuous as furnishing an important thread of the 
argument to be pursued. Imperfectly as this doctrine has been 
understood, and crude as has been the form in which it has 
most generally been entertained, it has already been success- 
fully used in the proxim'ate solution of many recondite problems 
in science and philosophy; and when reduced to a more correct 
and complete form of statement, its philosophic importance 
will, in our view, be vastly augmented. It will then constitute 
a most important and reliable guide to an understanding of the 
law of progressive development as applicable to all planes of 
existence, including the planes of national and social life, and of 
human history generally. It is in respect to these latter planes 
of existence more especially, that we now propose to invoke 
its light; and that this light may not be mixed with any flecks 
of darkness, we here submit the following corrected, extended 
and definitive statement. 

1. The doctrine of Evolution does not necessarily assume, 
as some have supposed, that the higher forms and gradations 
of being are the results exclusively or even mainly, of upwardly 
moving forces resident in primeval forms. Rather on the 
other hand may it be afifirmed that these higher gradations re- 
sult from the constant influx of upwardly attracting potencies 
into these lower and germinal forms, thus gradually lifting 
them up, so to speak, to higher and still higher degrees and 
finally bringing them to the maturity of the ultimate form proph- 
esied in the original type. 

2. Evolution, under the action of positive iorcts from above., 
upon negative and germinal conditions beneath, runs in discrete 
degrees, each degree distinct in itself, and yet inseparably con- 
nected with others in the general series or scale to which it 
belongs. 



8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

3. These discrete degrees, or separate and distinct grada- 
tions, are, \Vl principle, the same in all planes of existence, and their 
order of sequence is precisely the same. 

4. The grouping of these gradations or degrees, rising from 
beginnings to completeness or maturities in all planes of ex- 
istence, are also the same, and both the degrees themselves and 
their harmonic and complementary groupings must consist of 
the same number; so that if we understand the serial evolutions 
in any given plane, genus, species or form of existence, we 
may find in that plane, with its component degrees or serial 
parts, a type and correspondence of all other planes and their com- 
ponent parts. 

It becomes a question, then, of the highest philosophical 
importance, ''''What is the number and order of sequence of the 
gradations or degrees in each plane of evolutions 2 for upon the 
answer to that question will rest definitely the chief branch of 
a new and exceedingly important science, which we have 
termed, ''^The science of icniversal Correspondences,'' and to 
which constant appeals will be made in these pages. 

Many years ago the present author composed and published 
a volume* in which an attempt was made to show, that the 
number of degrees in each and every complete scale of evolu- 
tion, is seven: that the order of their sequence is the same as 
the order of the seven notes of the diatonic scale in music, 
and the seven colors of the rainbow, with their harmonics and 
complementary relations; and that the whole system of crea- 
tion, constructed on this plan, presents ^ grand series of octaves 
any one of which, being ascertained, would, in a general way, 
serve as a type and exponent of all the others, whether upon 
a higher or lower scale. 



*The Macrocosm and Microcosm; or the Universe without and the Uni 
verse within. (This book is now out of print.) 



THE END OF THE AGES. 9 

The conception and demonstration of this grand law brolce 
suddenly upon the writer's mind so long ago as the year 1848, 
in a manner and under circumstances which need not here be 
described. But since then, scientific men have independently 
discovered and demonstrated so much of this law as relates to 
the correspondence of colors and musical sounds, found respect- 
ively in the structure of the rainbow or prismatic spectrum, 
and in that of the musical scale. So far as we know, the first 
exposition of this truth that was given to the world through 
the current journals of science was published by Prof. W. F. 
Barrett, in the London Quarterly Journal of Science iov ]dLVim.vy^ 
1870. The writer illustrates his subject by a diagram, in 
which the colors of the rainbow, and the notes of the diatonic 
scale, with the lengths of the waves in the vibrations in each, 
are set opposite each other, and expressed by numbers. The 
lengths of the waves of light are expressed in millionths of a 
millimeter, and the lengths of the waves of sound in the tenor 
octave, are expressed in numbers of inches; and then both are 
reduced to a common scale of representative numbers of 
which the first is 100, — running thus: 



MILLIONTHS 

OF 
MILLIMETERS 



685 



616 560 

i i 



513 473 

I I 



410 362 342^^ 

I I I 



Orange Yellow 



Green 



Indigo 



Ultra 
Violet 
Actinic 




465^ 
_l_ 



75 


67 


60 


S3 


50 


39 


35 


31 


27^ 


26 



-o- 



.^ o 



-o- 



IJl 



i9- 



75 67 60 53 50 



lO THE END OF THE AGES. 

Of course the rapidity of vibrations increases in precisely the 
ratio in which the length of the waves decreases. Thus, if in 
the music scale, the lowest C of the seven octave piano gives 
32 vibrations to the second, (which is the fact), the octave C 
next above will give 64 in a second, and the next octave above 
that will give 128; and so on throughout. And so also of the 
ratio of increase in intermediate gradations. The scales thus 
being placed in juxtaposition, with the series of indicative 
numbers in each, it is seen that the progressions and propor- 
tions are substantially the same in both, as well as the numeri- 
cal steps of the series. On the basis of these facts. Professor 
Barrett and scientists generally have concluded that the laiv 
is the same in both scales. And this is farther and still more 
absolutely proved by facts which these scientists seem to have 
overlooked — namely, that in both scales, \.\\^ first, third and 
fifth, are harmonics. That is, in the color scale, the red, yellow 
and blue are harmonic colors; and in the music scale, the C, E 
andG, are harmonic sounds. Moreover, in the color scale, the 
first and fourth, the second and fifth, and the third and sixth, 
are complementary colors, so called; and this remark appears to 
apply equally to the first and fourth, the second and fifth and 
the third and sixth notes of the music scale. 

After pointing out the correspondences in the series and 
progressions in the two scales, Prof. Barrett adds, in a foot 
note, this striking remark: 

"This," says he, "appears to be a fundamental law of the 
universe, viz; That an original impulse of any kind finally 
resolves itself into periodic motion. Does this not throw 
light upon the periodic motion of the planets as well as the 
vibratory motion of atoms ? Possibly in some such way we may 
hereafter learn to understand the musical role of nature." 



THE END OF THE AGES. II 

Just SO, and this is precisely the problem we shall endeavor 
to solve. 

If Prof. Barrett had desired to strengthen his argument for 
the identity of law as present both in the music and color 
scales, he might have done so by applying the calculus of 
probabilities as to the same arrangement of gradations with 
the same order of succession, occurring, or failing to occur, 
by chance, in both scales. Any arithmetician may make this 
calculation, by successive multiplications of numbers from i 
to 7; that is, by multiplying i by 2, and the product of that by 
3, and the product of that by 4, and thence onward, in like 
manner to 7, — when it will appear that, if mere chance were 
concerned, and not a laiv, the chances that these two scales 
would not present a strictly corresponding arrangement of 
gradations throughout, and in every particular, would be as 
5039 to I. And then if a third seven fold scale of strictly 
corresponding gradations and progressions should present it- 
self anywhere in nature, the calculation would have to be 
carried forward in like manner from the 7 multiplications to 
14, when it would appear that the chances against chance, and 
in favor of law, would be as 86,938,041,200 to i. And then 
furthermore, if a fourth, a fifth, a tenth, a fiftieth seven fold 
series of like arrangements should present itself anywhere in 
nature, as will be shown is the case, the probabilities of a 
common law would be increased to infinitude, and even the 
possibilities of chance would be virtually annihilated. 

Assuming, therefore, as in view of all these considerations 
we have a right to assume, that there is a law in the case, and 
that the law extends beyond the mere scales of color and 
musical sounds, and has the extreme probability in its faror of 
being a universal law — we shall proceed without hesitation to 
apply it in the investigations that are before us — promising the 



12 THE END OF THE AGES. 

reader, that whatever cumulative evidences of the same may 
still seem desirable, will incidentally and abundantly appear in 
the course of the following pages. 

Ere we proceed, however, it seems proper, for a clearer ap- 
prehension of this law, with its included principles, to submit 
the following additional and condensed statements: 

1. The diatonic scale, as all know, consists of seven notes; the 
eighth or octave note being simply the Jirst repeated on a 
higher scale, and as a close in order to satisfy the ear. 

2. This same scale, reduced to semi-tonic intervals consists 
of twelve notes, forming what is called the c/womatic scale. 

3. The diatonic scale, as already seen, conspicuously in- 
cludes a major and minor harmonic triad — the w^y'^r consisting 
of the. first, third diwd fifth notes, and the jfiinor consisting of 
the second, fourth and sixth, with a seventh or central note 
serving, as it were, to pivot them all together. In point of fact 
there are, besides these two harmonic triads, also two others, 
not generally recognized, which may be called ordinal \.x\2^A?, — 
the first consisting of the yfri-/, second zxid. third notes, and the 
second consisting of the fourth, fifth and sixth — these two triads 
being joined together by an overlapping interval between the 
third and fourth notes. 

Omitting some other principles, which are too recondite for 
statement in this connection, we have here the conspicuous 
numbers, 7, 12 and 3. These numbers with their multiples 
and combinations seem to furnish us the golden key to unlock 
the mysteries of the harmonics and proportions existing in the 
structure and movements of the universe, of which fact abund- 
ant exemplifications will occur as we proceed.* 



*The numbers 2, 5 and 10 with their multiples and compounds have also 
an important meaning in the system of nature, but we shall not find it necessary 
to bring them into any very great prominence in the course of the investiga- 
tions that are before us. 



THE END OF THE AGES. I3 

Our first important application of this law, here immediately 
following will be to the Cycles of History, and will show us dis- 
tinctly the stage of the historical evolutions to which we have 
now attained, and enable us to predict something of the general 
nature of the events and changes which lie in the immediate 
future. 



CHAPTER II. 

A NEWLY DISCOVERED LAW OF CYCLES IN HISTORY; AND OUR 
POSITION IN TIME THENCE DETERMINED. 

CYCLES OF HISTORY NO. i. 

THE CYCLE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 

Discovery of the Law of cycles in history — Many year's fruitless search — Ar- 
bitrary divisions of time eschewed, and natural ones alone regarded; 
J discovery of twelve year waves; their demonstration — L Revolutionary 
and C^a(7i?V period, 1776-1788; Articles of Confederation; Their failure; 
Convention in 1787 — IL The Organizing period, 1788-1800; Constitution 
of U. S. Government organized under it. Washington President; Old 
Federal party — IIL The 7Vi/»«^ period, 1S00-1812; Localization of gov- 
ernment at Washington; Intrigues of the Mother country — IV. The Me- 
dian period, 1812-1824; War with England; A higher status acquired; Op- 
position to Slavery; Era of good feeling in politics; Visit of LaFayette — 
V. Period of Ideas and Aspirations, 1824-1836; Political and religious 
segregations; Free Schools; Railroads; Inventions; Speculations — VI. 
Period of Fruitage, 1836-1848 — Magnetic Telegraph; War with Mexico in 
the interest of slavery; circle of civilization round the globe completed — 
VII. Yex\oAoi Ripeness, 1848-1860 — Wheat and tares; Free soil party; 
F"ailure of compromise between Liberty and Slavery; Repeal of Missouri 
compromise — Troubles in Kansas — Republican party organized; Author's 
prediction of qtiasi national death in i860; election of President Lincoln — 
Secession and Rebellion. 

"\ T 7HILE engaged in writing my volume, The Macrocosm and 
* '' Microcosm^ etc., in the year 1852, I became convinced by 
the overpowering evidence of the universality of this law of 
seriation and correspondence, that it must apply in some way, 
also to human history. In other words I perceived the extreme 
probability, that history proceeds in regular cycles in which. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 15 

from first to last, there is a sevenfold series of differential 
parts or stages exactly answering to the seven distinctive 
degrees in the music and color scales, and to all other corre- 
sponding scales, the nature of which had thus far been ascer- 
tained. As to the manner of the application of this law to his- 
tory, however, I could, as yet, form no definite conception. 
During several of the ensuing years, my most diligent inqui- 
ries were directed to the solution of this new problem, but 
without avail. Hypothesis after hypothesis was started, but 
only to be exploded. I could not make my supposititious 
periods join together in a naturally diversified and grad- 
ational series, nor could I make supposed endings and begin- 
nings join together at the proper transitional points. All 
merely arbitrary divisions of time had, of course, to be es- 
chewed, and natural ones alone, demonstrated by the order of 
actual facts distinctively characteristic of what the several suc- 
cessive periods in the series of seven, might be supposed to 
present, had to be sought and regarded. But after beginning 
almost to despair of ever finding the long sought rule of the 
historical series, I found myself, one day, casually looking 
over an old table of the chronology of the American Republic, 
when I thought I saw the appearance of something like a 
regular succession of waves or steps, so to speak, in the de- 
velopment of our own national history. Farther and more 
careful consideration revealed the fact, that these waves or 
steps ran in periods of twelve years; and this fact, on mature 
verification, proved to be the first slender thread by which I 
subsequently found myself enabled to gradually draw up until 
within grasp, so much of the grand law of cycles or periodicity 
in history as relates not only to our own nation and other 
modern developments of civilization, but to the whole Chris- 
tian era. 



l6 THE EXl) OF THE AGES. 

In order that we may by this rule determine with some de- 
gree of definiteness our own latitude and longitude upon the 
sea of time, and ascertain, in a general way, what must nat- 
urally be our next steps, we will here briefly sketch the his- 
tory of the discovery and confirmation of this new and highly 
important law, beginning with the demonstration of the 
twelve year periods of our own history as the first indices of 
the more comprehensive facts, and of their serial order of ar- 
rangement. 

I. THE REVOLUTIONARY AND CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

The first twelve year period commenced on the year 1776, 
when our national independence was declared, and ended on 
the year 1788, when the constitution of the United States was 
ratified by the several states; and it may be called the Rev- 
olutionary and Chaotic Period. It was characterized by the 
darkness and uncertainty of the revolutionary struggle, and by 
the disorders of the national government under that loose 
compact between the states known as the "Articles of Con- 
federation," which were drawn up in 1777 and intended 
mainly to hold the states together in alliance against foreign 
enemies. Seeing the imminent danger of the utter dissolu- 
tion of the bonds which connected the States, owing to im- 
perfections in the terms of the original confederation, and the 
impossibility of enforcing the provision of the articles, a con- 
vention was called in 1787 to revise the Articles of Con- 
federation; but finding it impossible to do this in an effective 
manner, the convention proceeded to draw up the Constitution 
of the United States. This, on the following year, was 
adopted by the number of states requisite to carry it into 
effect, and thus it became the organic law of the nation, con- 
taining provisions for its own enforcement throughout all the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 17 

sections of the Union; and its adoption formed the fitting 
climax of the first twelve year period. 

2. THE ORGANIZING PERIOD. 

The Second tvieXve year period extended from 1788, when the 
constitution wasadopted by the States, to 1800, when the national 
government become permanently localized at Washington, and 
the people voted that it should pass out of the hands of the 
Old Federal party, into those of the National Republicans, sub- 
sequently called Democrats. It may be called distinctively the 
Organizing Period. It was during this period that under 
President Washington and his Secretary of State, Alexander 
Hamilton, the different Departments of the Government were 
organized with all the essential parts of its machinery, as it 
has continued with little modification to this day — a work, by 
the way, which none other than the Federal Party could have 
accomplished at that time. During the last four years of this 
period John Adams was President. ^ 

3. THE TESTING PERIOD. 

The Third twelve years, from 1800 to 181 2, during eight of 
which the Government was under the Presidency of Jefferson, 
and four under that of Madison, was the period oi practical test 
of the Governmental machinery previously organized. But the 
harmony of its proceedings suffered interference from the in- 
trigues and unfriendliness of the Mother Country, to which we 
shall have occasion to refer hereafter, and which led to the 
declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812. 

4. THE MEDIAN PERIOD. 

The Fourth twelve year period, from 1812 to 1824, Madison 
being President four years and Monroe eight, was a period of 

2 



l8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

far greater significance in the piiilosophy of national and so- 
cial development than space will allow us to fully explain at 
present. It may suffice here to call it the median and equil- 
ibrating period, as all fourths being in the middle of the scale 
of seven, partake of that characteristic. It has sometimes 
been called "the era of good feeling in politics," and so far 
witnessed the extinction of all political parties that Monroe 
was reelected to the Presidency in 1820, with scarcely a dis- 
senting voice. It witnessed the removal of all fears of ever 
being re-absorbed by the Mother Country and losing our na- 
tional independence, and also witnessed the rise of our country 
to a national and social status higher than before, and more 
distinctively its own. It witnessed the first faint inception of 
a movement to secure the equal rights of men without dis- 
tinction of color, and the commencement of agitations to se- 
cure these rights which, increasing in violence as time rolled 
on, finally culminated in a civil war between the northern 
and southern states. The close of the period was fittingly 
signalized by the visit to our shores of General LaFayette, 
the companion in arms of Washington during the Revolution, 
and a marked revival of the patriotic sentiments of our people 
of which that event was the occasion. 

5. PERIOD OF IDEAS AND ASPIRATIONS. 

The Fifth twelve year period, from 1824 to 1836, may be 
called the Period of Ideas and Aspirations. It would seem that 
during this period the thoughts of men, which had previously 
run almost entirely in the channels of authority and preced- 
ent, broke loose from restraint to an extent unexampled in 
any previous period, and pursued independent directions. 
These directions were widely divergent, running into both 
truths and fanaticisms, useful practicalities and subversive ex- 



THE END OF THE AGES. I9 

travagances; and dissentions and disruptions prevailed to a 
remarkable extent, in the social and religious world, as well 
as in the political. 

The period commenced with marked diversifications in the 
political sentiments of the country, which placed in the field 
in 1824, no less than four candidates for the Presidency, 
throwing the election into the House of Representatives, 
which made choice of John Quincy Adams. It was, perhaps, 
natural in such a period of individual and social segregation 
that political ambition and intrigue should prevail to an un- 
wonted extent. President Jackson, first elected in 1828, com- 
menced his administration on the succeeding year by inaugu- 
rating the rule in politics, '■''To the victors belong the spoils T and 
thenceforth elections became, to a great extent, mere scram- 
bles for offices and their emoluments, making patriotism a sec- 
ondary thought, and laying the foundations of all the corrup- 
tions which down to this moment have disgraced our politics. 
In financial matters, our people ran wild with speculations, 
laying the foundation of the great revulsion which occurred 
in 1837. But this new elasticity of thought was productive of 
some of the noblest results in other directions; and to it that 
period owed, in a great measure, the origination of the Free 
School System, the Temperance Reform; the extension and 
confirmation of the sentiment in favor of the emancipation of 
the colored race; a vast number of inventions of labor-saving 
machinery; the introduction of the Railroad System, and the 
settlement of vast areas of land previously unoccupied. These 
two tendencies, good and bad, upward and downward, were 
sufficiently characteristic of the period, as a period of Ideas 
and Aspirations^ and served to distinguish it from the periods 
which preceded and followed. 



20 THE END OF THE AGES. 

6. PERIOD OF FRUITAGE. 

The Sixth twelve year period commenced with the election 
of Martin Van Buren in 1836 and ended in 1848, This was 
the period of fruitage, the previous period, being relatively 
that of blossoiimig, and it brought the fruitage both of the 
wheat and the tares of our political harvest field. Cunning, 
and intrigue, and time-serving were now inaugurated as the 
policy of the party in power; the corruption of the ballot box 
became ineradicable, and political ambition twined itself 
around the institution of slavery as a column of support, 
whilst unscrupulously lending support to it in return. Slavery, 
pampered by politicians and denounced by th*e abolitionists, 
became rampant and furious, and demanded the annexation of 
the then Mexican territory of Texas for the extension of its 
area and the increase of its political power. This project, 
being accomplished, led to a war with Mexico, which ter- 
minated in 1848 with the acquisition of New Mexico, Arizona 
and California, and the extension of our territory to the 
Pacific Coast. Our national domain was thus rounded out 
and brought to its mature proportions, while the political and 
social ideas of our nation, conceived on the plane of the Dec- 
laration of Independence and the Constitution of the United 
States, also received their mature development about the 
same time. 

It was during this twelve year period, viz: in 1844, that the 
first Magnetic Telegraph line, which connected Washington 
and Baltimore,* was established, — an invention which when de- 
veloped to its full working capacities, was destined to bring 



*Morse invented his process about the commencement of this period, 
and patented it in 1S37, but it was not until 1844 that it was made a practical 
affair. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 2 1 

all parts of the earth into almost instantaneous communica- 
tion. It is a curious thought that about the time Morse was 
engaged in the invention of telegraphy, developments were 
taking place in the psychological world which, in the belief of 
several millions of intelligent persons, have been effectual as 
farther unfolded in establishing quasi telegraphic communi- 
cation between this mundane sphere and the invisible realms 
beyond. It is a farther coincident fact, that with the settle- 
ment of California, which commenced in 1848, the circle of 
civilization was, in a sense, completed round the whole globe, render- 
ing the period a significant one to the whole world as well as to 
America. But concerning the more perfect connection of this 
circle of civilization in i860, more will be said in a subsequent 
chapter. It will also be remembered that the year 1848 was a 
period of political convulsions which shook all the thrones and 
dynasties of Europe; and that it was on this year also that 
sensible demonstrations alleged to be from the spiritual world, 
began to challenge universal investigation. 

How wonderful was this period ! and how wonderful were its 
distinctive developments as characteristic oi just what it ought 
to be, as a sixth period, according to the natural law, which, in 
its application to the different gradations of the series will here- 
after become more and more distinctly apparent! 

7. PERIOD OF RIPENESS. 

The Seventh twelve year period extended from 1848 to i860. 
It was the period of ripeness, — of the gathering in of the fruits 
of our political harvest field, and of the separation of the wheat 
from the tares. The past had witnessed repeated attempts to 
compromise two social ideas which are essentially antagonistic 
— Freedom and Slavery. This period was ushered in with the 



22 THE END OF THE AGES. 

organization in 1848 of tiie '^Free Soil Farty^'" whose dis- 
tinctive principle was opposition to the admission into the 
Union of any more slave states. On its platform Martin Van 
Buren accepted a nomination for the Presidency, and thus, 
by dividing the Democratic vote, caused the defeat of Gen. 
Cass, and the election of the Whig candidate, Gen. Taylor. 
The slave power became alarmed and assumed an attitude still 
more belligerent and dictatorial than it had dared to assume 
in the past. By the urgency of its demands and the boldness 
of its menaces, it succeeded in procuring the passage of 
the Fugitive Slave Law and other compromise measures, by 
act of Congress. But the laws of nature proved stronger than 
the acts of Congress, and the compromise not only failed to 
accomplish its purpose, but all attempts to carry it into effect 
only tended to exasperate the people of the free states, and to 
increase the opposition to the institution of slavery. 

The Missouri compromise was abrogated in 1854, by act of 
Congress, for the express purpose of opening Kansas and Ne- 
braska to slavery; and the Republican Fart}\ based upon op- 
position to the extension of slavery, was organized on the 
same year. So powerful did this party immediately become, 
that in 1856, two years after its organization, it nearly suc- 
ceeded in electing its candidate for the Presidency. Kansas 
became the battle ground between Freedom and Slavery, and 
although the whole power of President Buchanan's administra- 
tion was thrown into the scale of the latter, the battle ended 
in making Kansas a free, instead of a slave State. 

It was in 1858 and 1859 that the writer discovered, and 
arrived at a clear apprehension of the import of this serial 
succession of twelve year periods in the history of the Ameri- 
can Republic. It was perceived that each one of these periods 
stood by itself, distinctly marked with characteristics which be- 



THE END OF THE AGES. 23 

longed appropriately only to itself, and to neither of the 
others. It was noticed that the first period was actually a 
first in its very nature; that the second was a second^ the third 
a thu'd^ and so on to the completion of the series of seven. It 
was noticed that the order of succession and gradation in 
these periods was the same, and obeyed the same law, as was 
exemplified in every other seven fold series which, in my pre- 
viously published book and otherwise, had been made the sub- 
ject of analysis and investigation. So perfect seemed this 
correspondence, and so confident was I that the same law was 
here present that governed all other scales of seven, that I 
ventured the prediction, and freely proclaimed it among my 
friends and daily associates, -that the year i860 would wittiess a 
change in our nation which would in some sense answer to a national 
death. When asked what specific event I supposed would take 
place, I answered that I could not tell, but only felt assured 
that something would occur on that year which would answer 
to a national death; and of this prediction I requested them 
to make a note. 

The event that did occur was the virtual death of the Union 
by the secession of South Carolina, followed early in the en- 
suing year by the secession of several other states, all being 
prompted to this step by the election to the Presidency of the 
Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, on a platform of op- 
position to the farther extension of slavery. 

Civil war followed secession; and we might have gone on to 
state other predictions, extending still farther into the future, 
founded upon the basis of this same law; but of these we will 
speak hereafter when the basic position from which they 
were made shall have been still farther fortified and the sig- 
nificance of all these and other facts, not only in respect to 
our own nation but the world, shall distinctly appear. 



CHAPTER III. 

CYCLES IN HISTORY NO. II. 

First Colonial Cycle, 1608-1692. 

Discovery of the Cycles of Colonial History — Period I., 1608-1620: Settlement 
on the James River in 1607-8 — Three times seven times twelve years to 
1776 — II., — 1520-1632; Landing of the Mayflower in 1620; Sojourn in Hol- 
land the previous 12 years — III., 1632-1644: Charter of Maryland to Lord 
Baltimore in 1632 — Large emigration and colonization at various points; 
Governmental order; First confederation of New England colonies — IV., 
1644-1656: Charter of Rhode Island — Religious liberty; The Cromwellian 
Commonwealth; Restrictive acts of Parliament; Republicanization — V., 
1656-1668: Religious denominations; "Colonies already hardened into re- 
publics" — -VL, 1668-1680: England's right to tax colonies denied — VII., 
Characteristics of an £nd; General extinction of Colonial charters; English 
Revolution. 

AFTER noticing these seven distinct twelve year waves in 
our national progress, these seven stratifications in our 
political geology, these seven days in the creation of our social 
world, these seven notes in the scale of our ascending move- 
ments, these seven parts of our political tree — (answering to 
roots, stem, branches ; leaves, blossoms, fruit and seed) — I could 
not suppress a desire to know how this law of evolution ap- 
plied to our Colonial History, as it seemed pretty certain that 
the law must also apply there, though, perhaps, in a less dis- 
tinct and definite way, owing to the chaotic nature of the 
times and facts. If it were necessary to show to the reader, 
that there is nothing in this theory that is woven out of the 
fancies supplied by my own imagination, it would be suffi- 



THE END OF THE AGES. 25 

cient to say, that the imagination was actually tested to its 
full capacity in the endeavor to trace the law in these anterior 
Y>QV\ods, hnt it utterly failed. In the endeavor to find a salient 
point in history from which measurements of subsequent 
periods might be taken according to our law, I went back to 
the discovery of America by Columbus; to the voyages of the 
Cabots; the voyage of Americus Vespucius, of John Ponce de- 
Leon, of Cartier, of Sir Walter Raleigh, and others, but found 
that by using either of these periods as a point of departure, 
the whole system was thrown into chaos and confusion. The 
periods would not come out right, and would not work right 
in any of these supposed intermediate stages. After spend- 
ing many months in the fruitless search for the thread of an- 
terior developments that would pass harmoniously into the 
seven fold line of periodicity which had been already analyzed 
and determined, I was about to give it up in despair when the 
thought occurred to me that I had been on a wild goose chase 
after a thing which, after all, might lie directly under my nose. 
''The proper mode of search for the truth of which I am in 
quest" thought I, is to inquire, "What is the period of the 
first successful settlement, by people of our own national an- 
cestry, and within the territory which subsequently became 
the United States ?" Imagination having thus failed in the 
construction of this theory, we will now see what t\\% facts can 
accomplish. I now recalled the fact that a ship load of English 
emigrants took up their abode on the James River, Virginia, in 
the year 1607. But of itself, this incipient settlement of 1607 
was unsuccessful. It had none of the elements of success un- 
til they were supplied by arrivals on the followi?ig ye3.r. It 
lacked farmers, artizans and men of industrious habits, and 
consisted of no families and /lo women. Out of the one hun- 
dred and five persons who arrived in 1607 only about forty were 



26 THE END OF THE AGES. 

living at the commencement of the subsequent year, and these, 
greatly disheartened, were with difficulty persuaded by Capt. 
Smith to abandon a resolution they had formed to sail in a 
little pinnace to the West Indies. 

FIRST PERIOD 1608-1620. 

But early in that same year, 1608, Captain Newport sailed 
into the James River with provisions and more colonists 
among which were two women; and the settlement was thus 
provided with the elements of possible success. 

I now noticed the startling arithmetical fact, that from 
1608 to 1776, the period of the Declaration of Independence, 
there were just three of these periods of seven times twelve or eighty- 
four years ! How does that happen ? Are we on the track of 
our long sought discovery, or does this come by chance ? 
The latter could scarcely be the case, as there are hundreds 
of chances against it to one in its favor. But let us look at 
the case a little farther. How about the twelve year periods 
for instance ? 

SECOND PERIOD, 1620-1632. 

In the year 1620, twelve years after the first successful set- 
tlement in Virginia, the Mayflower landed her colony of 
"Pilgrim Fathers" on Plymouth Rock. It is another coinci- 
dence that it was in 1608 that, seeking refuge from persecu- 
tion this same party had fled from England to Holland, where 
at Leyden, they resided during twelve years in the enjoyment of 
religious freedom. But at the end of this time, feeling that 
they were exiles from their homes, and being unacquainted 
with the language and customs of the Dutch people, they 
turned their faces toward America, concerning which they 
had heard many charming stories, and where they hoped to 



THE END OF THE AGES. 27 

be free from all annoyance in the belief and practice of their 
religious faith. 

Another event occurred about the year 1620 (1619), but of a 
less admirable though scarcely less significant character. A 
Dutch ship sailed into the James River with a cargo of Negroes 
on board, which were sold to the colonists; and from that 
year slavery became established. 

THIRD PERIOD, 1632-1644. 

Twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims, Lord Balti- 
more, who had previously made an ineffectual attempt to plant 
a colony in America, secured a charter for Maryland; but as 
he died about the same time, the charter was issued to his 
son and heir, Cecil. This was in 1632 (twelve years from 
1620); but the first company of emigrants did not sail until 
December, 1633, and they arrived in March of the following 
year. They were mostly Roman Catholics, fleeing also from 
persecution, and seeking religious liberty. The colony, under 
Leonard Calvert, the brother of the proprietor and governor, 
was founded upon the most liberal principles, both political and 
religious, and having paid the Indians for the land they oc- 
cupied, they were free from the hostility of the surrounding 
tribes and exempt from the want and suffering by which other 
early settlements were afflicted. 

The twelve year period that ensued was characterized by 
large emigrations to New England; also the crystallization of 
the crude elements of all the then established colonies into 
something like governmental order, and the first confedera- 
tion of the New England colonies (in 1643). 

FOURTH PERIOD, 1644-1656. 

The commencement of this period was fittingly characterized 
by the independent charter of Rhode Island and Providence 



28 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Plantations, procured by Roger Williams, on the basis of tol- 
eration atid freedom of all religious beliefs. The dodecade 
(or twelve year period) that ensued was distinguished by the 
republicanization of the Mother Country and the influence of 
the same upon the colonies in generating and fixing new ideas 
of liberty and republican government. The Puritans, under 
the lead of Oliver Cromwell, rebelled against the arbitrary 
rule of King Charles, and on the first year of the period, 
fought a battle against the royal troops at Marston Moor, 
in which Cromwell was victorious. In 1645 '^^'^^ fought the 
battle of Naseby, in which Cromwell was again victorious, and 
King Charles was taken prisoner; in consequence of which 
event Parliament became supreme. In 1649, King Charles was 
executed. In 165 1, Cromwell's victory at Worcester made 
him practically the ruler over the three kingdoms of Great 
Britain, Scotland, and Ireland; and in 1653, Cromwell was de- 
clared Lord Protector. 

On the other hand, the colonists were, during this period, in- 
cited to assume grounds more nearly approximating to republi- 
canism, by acts hostile to their interests, on the part of the 
parent government. It was this period that witnessed the 
initiament, by Parliament, of oppressive navigation laws in re- 
spect to the colonies, which, being renewed from time to time, 
and provoking protests and discussions, gradually educated 
the colonists to a knowledge and appreciation of their rights, 
and finally forced them to assert them in a Declaration of In- 
dependence. 

Equilibration in governments, republicanization, is a distinc- 
tive characteristic of a fourth degree, being the middle of the 
scale of seven, and this characteristic here appears with suffi- 
cient distinctness. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 29 

FIFTH PERIOD, 1656-1668. 

In addition to the characteristics already noted as dis- 
tinguishing the several periods mentioned, it is deemed worthy 
of remark, that in the establishment of the first settlement, in 
1608, was witnessed the advent of English Episcopalianism; in 
the second, in 1620, that of Puritanism; in the third, in 1632, 
that of Roman Catholicism; in the commencement of the fourth 
period, Roger Williams in establishing religious toleration in 
Rhode Island, at the same time inaugurated the sect of 
Baptists. So now the commencement of the Fifth Period, in 
1656, was distinguished by the first appearance of the Quakers 
in Massachusetts — an event which not only had a marked in- 
fluence upon the immediate history of the times, but was fruit- 
ful of moral results in subsequent periods. Their persecutions, 
banishments, martyrdoms and triumphs so reacted against the 
rigors of Puritanism as to beget a more liberal and charitable 
public sentiment, and paved the way for the general exercise 
of a larger freedom of thought. 

The political and social evolutions of this period are marked 
by no very striking peculiarities, but such as appear are suffi- 
ciently in correspondence with characteristics which belong to 
fifth degrees in all scales of seven, — aspiratory, reaching 
upward to an eighth note or degree, which is the 
first in the octave above. The spirit of independence 
in the colonies experienced a marked development, stimu- 
lated as it was by the increased burdens imposed by the 
Navigation Law, which, as amended by act of Parlia- 
ment in 1663, enjoined the colonies to purchase im- 
ported merchandise o?ily of England. Partly on account of the 
dissatisfaction which this act excited among the Colonies, and 
the spirit of opposition to its enforcement which was developed, 



30 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the Crown, in 1664, appointed commissioners to visit the colo- 
nies, clothed with judicial powers to settle all matters in dis- 
pute. The authority of these commissioners was resisted, es- 
pecially by Massachusetts, and the commissioners returned to 
England and reported that '■'■the Colonies had already hardened 
into Republics. ' ' 

In the Mother Country the Cromwellian Republic came to an 
end, and in 1660 the monarchy was restored in the person of 
Charles II., furnishing thus an exemplification on a small scale, 
of what naturally happens to Republics which have not the 
virtue, the intelligence and the power to pass upward from 
their first crude to a second and higher degree of development. 

SIXTH PERIOD, 1668-1680. 

This period is distinguished by no strikingly characteristic 
event, either at its opening or closing year; and yet the develop- 
ments of the intermediate years are in correspondence with 
what the serial law assigns to a sixth degree — fruitage — ma- 
turity. It was during this period that England's policy of 
exaction from the Colonies was in a certain degree matured 
as was also that of the Colonies to resist unjust exactions. In 
1672 the Navigation Act was made still more onerous. In 
1677 Massachusetts denied England's right to tax the Colonies 
or to make laws, or perform any act of sovereignty toward 
them. In 1679, the last year of the dodecade, Randolph was 
sent to enforce the Navigation Law in New England but was 
vigorously opposed, and finding it impossible to carry out his 
instructions, returned to England. 

SEVENTH PERIOD, 1680-1692. 

This period has in a remarkable degree the distinctive 
characteristics of an end. This will be seen by a cursory 



THE END OF THE AGES. 3I 

review of the events and changes that occurred during the 
dodecade. There was a crisis both in the affairs of the 
Colonies and in the affairs of the Mother Country, such as in 
each case involved the necessity of a 716110 beginning^ or as we 
say in common parlance, "the turning over of a new leaf." 
In respect to the Colonies, this crisis involved the actual or 
practical extinction of their charters, and the absorption of 
the local government into the Crown of England. To the 
parent government, the period brought revolution and the 
change of a dynasty, accompanied with vitally important mod- 
ifications in the whole spirit and methods of government. 

The facts, in brief detail, are as follows: In 1684, the 
charter of Massachusetts was annulled by Charles II., for 
non-compliance with the Navigation Act. James II. succeeding 
to the throne on the death of Charles, which happened on the 
following year, also declared the Massachusetts charter for- 
feited. He determined that there should be no free govern- 
ments within his dominions. Accordingly, soon after his 
accession to the throne, he ordered writs to be issued against 
the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island; and in 1686, 
the middle year of this period, he appointed Sir Edmund Andros 
Governor-General of all New England, who commenced his 
administration by the exercise of despotic power. In 1688, 
New York and New Jersey were added to Andros' jurisdiction ; 
and for more than two years there was a general suppression 
of charter governments throughout the Colonies. 

But the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of King James at 
home, provoked the revolution of 1688, by which he was com- 
pelled to abdicate, and William of Orange, and his wife Mary, 
ascended the throne soon after. A great change was thus 
inaugurated in the spirit of English politics. The assumption 
that kings have a divine right to rule without responsibility to 



32 THE END OF THE AGES. 

their subjects, and to enforce their whims and caprices regard- 
less of the rights and interests of the people, was rendered no 
longer possible in the government of England. The English 
constitution assumed nearly its present form and spirit. The 
popular will, expressed by Parliament, became potential, and 
the monarch was shorn of all power except that which was 
conferred upon him by the laws. 

The Colonies warmly espoused the cause of the Revolution, 
and no sooner had the people of Boston heard of the accession 
of William and Mary to the throne, than they seized and im- 
prisoned Andros and about fifty of his political associates and 
sent them back to England under a charge of maladministra- 
tion of public affairs, and reestablished their Republican Gov- 
ernment. 

It deserves a passing notice that it was during this period, 
viz. in 1682, that Pennsylvania, subsequently and not inappro- 
priately designated as the "Keystone of the arch of the 
Union of States," was settled by William Penn and his 
Quaker followers. Thus Quakerism, which we have seen 
struggling with Puritan persecutions at the commencement of 
the Fifth Period, became firmly established. 

It was at the close of this Period, especially in 1692, that 
the wonderful psychological phenomena, or rather series of 
phenomena, occurred, known as the Salem Witchcraft — coinci- 
dent with similar and still more striking occurrences which 
happened in France and Sweden about the same time. These 
phenomena falling exactly within this period, are not without 
significance as having their parallels at several closing periods 
of cycles both before and after. 

If, then, the twelve year Period initiated by the first 
successful Colonization on the James River in 1608, was 2i first 
period in the cycle, it seems almost equally clear that the 



THE END OF THE AGES. ;^$ 

period from 1680 to 1692, which witnessed the general 
extinction of Colonial Charters, and also brought about the 
English Revolution, was a last or ^/lal period of a series. 
Here, then, we have the first colonial cycle complete, 
consisting of 7 X 12 = 84 years. But our proofs of the cyclic 
law are cumulative as we proceed, and we are as yet far short 
of the point at which we propose to rest our case. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CYCLES OF HISTORY NO. III. 

Second Colonial Cycle, 1692-1776. 

Struggles for empire in America — Effects on the Colonies — Period I., i6q2- 
1704: New Charter to Massachusetts; Extension of territory but with 
curtailed privileges; New beginning — Causes of alienation — Controversy 
about salaries of governors — Forebodings of Colonial revolt — II., 1704- 
1716: First American Newspaper — Queen Anne's War — Educating the 
colonies to self-reliance — III., 1716-1728: Government of Maryland 
restored to Lord Baltimore — New Orleans settled by French — -Designs of 
French in the West — IV., 1728-1740: Completion of the number of 
Colonies that subsequently fought in the Revolution — Birth of the leading 
spirits of that struggle — V., 1740-1752: Cordon of French forts in the 
West; War between England and France, and Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; 
"Ohio company" formed — VI., 1752-1764: New complications; The 
"French and Indian War" — Expulsion of the French from all America 
except Louisiana, in 1763 — British Supremacy — Fruitage — VII., 1764- 
1776: Seeds of revolution in oppressive acts of Parliament; Discontent 
and fermentation — British troops fire on Boston citizens; Cargoes of tea 
destroyed — Battles of Lexington and Bunker' Hill — Reflections and 
summing up of evidence — " Eureka! " 

'T^HIS second Colonial Cycle was characterized by the 
^ struggles of European monarchs for empire in America, and 
by frequent and prolonged wars between England and France. 
Between these contestant powers, the Colonies were a third 
party and for their own protection against the harrassing raids 
of the French and their Indian allies, they were kept under 
arms a large portion of the time. While the effect of this 
was, of course, disastrous to the commercial and financial 
interests of the Colonies, it served to impress upon them a 
deeper sense of their own importance and self-dependence, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 35 

and to educate them for the final struggle by which they 
became a united and independent Nation. The vicissitudes of 
the wars between foreign powers, of which they were, for the 
most part, at once the theater and object, contributed in some 
degree to disarrange and chastify, so to speak, the different 
evolutions or stages of progress in which we have heretofore 
witnessed the distinctive characteristics of twelve year periods, 
as forming a connected series of seven. A close analysis of 
events, however, discloses the fact that the law of the series 
applies here as well as to the two cycles previously examined; 
but it will be sufficient for us to exhibit only a few general and 
salient points. 

FIRST PERIOD, 1692-1704. 

This Period commences with the issue of a new charter to 
Massachusetts, in which its territory is extended to the St. 
Lawrence on the north, to Nova Scotia on the east, including 
Maine, and west to the "South Sea," whatever thatmaymean, 
excepting New Hampshire and New York. 

It also included Plymouth, which till then had been a 
separate Colony, and Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the 
Elizabeth Islands. But with this vast extension of its territory 
the political liberties of the people were greatly restricted, 
and consisted almost wholly in the privilege of electing their 
representatives. The King reserved to himself the right of 
appointing Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and the Secretary 
of the Colony; and of repealing the laws within three years 
after their passage. The Governor also had the power 
to reject any law that might be displeasing to him; to 
appoint all military and judicial officers, and, at his pleasure, to 
adjourn, or even dissolve the Legislative Assembly. And 
so if it may be said that Massachusetts, with the provinces 



36 THE END OF THE AGES. 

now included in lier vastly extended territory, entered on a 
new beginning^ it may with equal truth be said that that 
beginning so far as political liberty was concerned was at the 
bottojH. Changes in the governmental affairs of the Colonies 
outside of the Massachusetts territory, though not so great 
and of a different character, were yet such as to bear out this 
idea of a new beginning, and to characterize this period as the 
first of some new series. 

But the government of England failed to estimate correctly 
the spirit of the people upon whom these onerous restrictions 
were imposed, and instead of uniting the Colonies more closely 
to the crown, as was intended, these very measures, by irritat- 
ing and alienating the people still farther, were really among 
the principal causes which, by persistence and farther 
aggravation, led to the final separation of the Colonies from the 
Mother Country. And thus, in the very beginning of this 
cycle, were the seeds planted which at its close produced the 
fruits of revolution. 

Before the close of this twelve year period, viz., in 1703, the 
recoil of the public sentiment against these usurpations took 
occasion to manifest itself in the matter of the salaries of the 
Governors. The Massachusetts Legislature virtually said to 
the king, "You have appointed your Governor over us to do 
your own work, and not ours, it is therefore your business, and 
not ours, to pay him for his services;" and thus arose a contro- 
versy with the parent government which lasted formany years. 

It was in this initial period, moreover, that expression was 
given by the parent government, of the first foreboding of a 
final revolt and separation of the Colonies, and for the purpose 
of forefending such an event, a bill was, in 1701, introduced 
into the House of Commons, to unite all chartered governments 
to the crown. This bill, however, was defeated. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 37 

SECOND PERIOD, 1704-1716. 

The commencement of this period may, perhaps, be con- 
sidered as sufificiently signalized by the establishment of the 
first American Newspaper, the Boston Newsletter — an event 
which, though at first seeming of little importance, was really 
an initiament of one of the most important instrumentalities of 
modern education and social and national progress. This 
period also covered almost the whole duration of "Queen 
Anne's War," as it was termed, between Great Britain and 
France, which commenced in 1702 and ended with the peace 
of Utrecht in 17 13. In this war the French, operating from 
Canada, with their Indian allies, were a perpetual menace to 
the colonies, and offensive and defensive hostilities were 
carried on which, though disastrous to the industry and 
finances of the colonies, served to educate them in the arts of 
war, to increase their sense of self-dependence, and to show 
their importance to Great Britain as a cooperative power 
against the French. 

THIRD PERIOD, 1716-1728. 

This Period has no developments which very distinctively 
segregate it from the others, owing perhaps, to the combined 
influences acting upon it from without, both from the French 
and the English. It, however, witnessed a continuation of the 
contests between Massachusetts and the parent government 
on the question of the governor's salary, with a renewal of 
which controversy the Period opens in 1716. On the same 
year, also, the government of Maryland, which had been ab- 
sorbed by the crown, was restored to Lord Baltimore. In 
1717 New Orleans was settled by the French. In 1721 the 
French conceived a design of monopolizing trade with the 



38 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Indians, and projected a cordon of forts through the West to 
connect Canada with Louisiana. Thus French influence be- 
came established, and the colonies became a more distinct 
factor in the settlement of disputes between them and the 
English. 

FOURTH PERIOD, 1728-1740. 

This Period, being the middle of the scale of seven, ought to 
present something characteristic of its equilibrating position. 
The great interior, spiritual and divine forces of development 
were partially concealed under the coverings of mixed sur- 
face developments during some of the intermediate periods of 
this cycle, but here a providential intimation of them, and of 
their ultimate outworkings, becomes intelligible in the comple- 
tion of the number of Colonies which subsequently fought in 
the Revolution, and in the birth of most of the leading spirits 
that took part in that struggle. Thus in 1733, Georgia was 
settled, which afterwards counted as the thirteenth State. 
George Washington was born in 1732; John Adams in 1735; 
Patrick Henry in 1736; John Hancock and Thomas Paine in 
1737. And so the births of nearly all the signers of the Dec- 
laration of I^idepeiidence^ and the leaders of the armies of the 
Revolution, either fall within this period, or only a little be- 
fore or a little after it, being about equally divided as to their 
anterior or posterior dates. Here, then, is the Revolution in 
the first distinguishable and slumbering form of its foetal state. 

FIFTH PERIOD, 1740-1752. 

This is a Period of still more definite conflicting ideas and 
aspirations between France, England and the Colonies. It 
commences with the defeat of the Chickasaws in the West by 
the French, and the accomplishment of their long cherished 



THE END OF THE AGES. 39 

design of establishing a cordon of forts tlirough that region, 
connecting Canada with Louisiana — aspiring through that 
means to ultimately unite all North America with the crown 
of France. In 1744 another war was proclaimed between Eng- 
land and France, which ended with the treaty of Aix-la-Chap- 
elle in 1748. In 1750 the "Ohio Company" was formed, re- 
ceiving a grant by the British Parliament, of six hundred 
thousand acres of land about the Ohio River. This company 
immediately caused their lands to be surveyed, and com- 
menced trading with the neighboring Indians. 

SIXTH PERIOD, 1752-1764. 

The events both of the opening and the close of this 
period are of a striking character. The French protested 
against the occupancy by the Ohio Company of lands which 
they claimed as their own, and seeing that their remonstrances 
were unheeded, they seized some of the English traders and 
imprisoned them in one of their forts. The traders com- 
plained to the Governor of Virginia that their chartered rights 
had been invaded and Washington, now only twenty-two 
years old, and appearing for the first time in history, is des- 
patched by the Governor with a letter to the French Com- 
mandant, warning the intruders to quit English territory. 
The refusal to heed this warning led to other complications, 
and finally, in 1756, to another formal declaration of war by 
England against France. This war, known as the Frejich mid 
India?i War, ended in 1763 with the expulsion of the French 
from all American territory except Louisiana; with the occu- 
pation by the English of all Canada, and with the termination 
of all controversies with that nation concerning American 
possessions from that time forth. Here, then, we have in a 
striking degree the characteristics of a sixth development — 



40 THE END OF THE AGES. 

fruitage — maturity — the fruitage or final result of all contests 
between the British and French for the possession of the 
Northern portion of America and, it may be said, the 
completion of the education and development of the Colonies 
to take a decisive and independent step of their own. 

SEVENTH PERIOD, 1764-1776. 

Here we have the gradual evanishing of the old cycle or octave 
of historical developments, and its emergment into a new one — 
the cycle of our independent republican history already 
reviewed and illustrated. On the very year 1764 and just 
twelve years before the Declaration of Independence, the 
British Parliament commenced that course of oppressive 
legislation in reference to American import duties and taxes 
which rendered resistance and a final breach between the two 
countries inevitable. In 1765, the act known as the "Stamp 
Act" was passed, and a colonial congress to discuss grievances 
was held at New York. In 1767, new taxes were imposed by 
Parliament. In 1768, Massachusetts requested the cooperation 
of other Colonies in resisting these impositions, and a conven- 
tion was holden in Boston. On the same year, two regiments 
of British soldiers were stationed in Boston to overawe the 
citizens and assist the Custom House officers in the collection 
of revenue. In 1769 a non-importation agreement was entered 
into by all the Colonies. In 1770, which was the middle year of 
the period^ British troops fired upon some citizens who had in- 
sulted them and killed four of them — this being the first blood 
spilt in the controversy. In 1773 cargoes of tea were de- 
stroyed in Boston harbor, by the citizens, to prevent it being 
sold to the people. In 1774 the port of Boston was closed by 
act of Parliament; and a Continental Congress was holden in 
Philadelphia. In 1775, the battles of Lexington and Bunker 



THE END OF THE AGES. 41 

Hill were fought, and on the fourth of July, 1776, X.\\^ Declara- 
tion of Independence was proclaimed^ and the new Cycle was inaugu- 
rated. 

Here, then, we have, from the first successful English 
settlement in America in 1608, to the ostensible dissolution 
of the American Union in i860, three cotnplete cycles, each con- 
sisting of seven dodecades or twelve year periods. In each, the do- 
decades rise from one to seven in the same order of natural 
progress, in which the characteristics of (^i?g"/«;//«^j-, middles^ and 
endings are specially conspicuous, and those characteristics 
which are necessary to the intermediates of these, are scarcely 
less manifest. Period number one of each of these cycles is 
in characteristic correspondence to period number one of all 
the others; number two, to number two, and so of all the 
other numbers; and the whole is in correspondence with the 
order of the series as found in all other departments of nature. 
Here the system stands before you, reader, not as a theory in- 
vented by man., but as a grand, complex, harmonious and in- 
tensely beautiful Fact whxch. God alone could have originated; 
and can you wonder at the enthusiasm of the writer which im- 
pelled him to shout "Eureka!" at the top of his voice on find- 
ing himself the humble discoverer of so grand and magnificent 
a Truth ? 

But though the series of Cycles here exhibited seemed un- 
questionably correct and self-demonstrative, I found after- 
wards that it was incomplete., even as respects the history of 
modern civilization. But before making this discovery and 
instituting a search for the missing member, the inquiry took 
a larger scope, attended with a still grander discovery, the ex- 
position of which will be next in order. A missing cycle of 84 
years will be pointed out afterwards, when its position and 
distinctive characteristics can be better understood. 



CHAPTER V. 

CYCLE OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, ITS GRADED SUB-CYCLES, AND 

WHEN CLOSED. 

Another long and discouraging search — New unit of 252 years — First Period, 
1-252: The chaotic and propagating Period — Declining Roman Empire 
and irruption of Barbarians — Significant Confederation of Frank tribes — 
Second Period, 252-504: The period of forms and transformations; Con- 
version of Constantine; Clovis, victorious and converted, becomes the first 
French monarch; whole French nation converted — This ends the period — 
Third Period, 504-756: Power and dominion acquired; Pope of Rome 
declared universal Bishop; His temporal power established by Pepin, 
King of France in 756 — Fourth Period, 756-1008: Events character- 
istic of the period; The church and the world; The dark age; Light from 
a non-Christian quarter — Abderaman, the Moor, founds a kingdom in 
Spain, also in 756 — Arts and sciences cultivated by the Moors and dis- 
seminated through Europe during subsequent centuries; Empire of Char- 
lemagne; Feudalism — Checks on the power of kings; Origin of baronial 
castles; Equilibration; Quasi republic of co-equal barons; Modern Europ- 
ism rises from old Romanism; Panic concerning the end of the world — 
Fifth Period, 1008-1260: Tendencies to rise; Ambition of Popes; The 
crusades; The good incidentally accomplished thereby; Local schools 
formed; Revival of learning; Chivalry; Elevation of the common people; 
Popular combinations; Origin of civic Republics; Levantine commerce; 
Afagna Chartaj English House of Commons established in 125S; Corre- 
spondence to other fifths; Papal power the bond of the Christian world — 
Sixth Period, 1260-1512: Decline of papal power over kings; Philip 
the Fair rebukes Boniface VIII. — Origin of the "great schism;" Ecclesias- 
tical arts and adornments; Cathedrals; The church sinks into a moral stu- 
por; Academies, colleges and universities; Libraries; Art of Printing; Civil 
and social conditions improve; A " tiers etai;" The Hanseatic League; 
Improvements in navigation; The magnetic needle and the stars as guides; 
Dreams of Columbus; His Discovery of America; Significant ending of 
the Sixth Period — Seventh Period, 1512-1764: A crisis necessitating a 
change; Vices and crimes of the popes and corruption of the Roman 
Church; Threat of Louis XII. ; Reform Councils called at Pisa in 1511 and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 43 

in Rome in 1512; These fruitless; Sale of indulgences; Luther aroused and 
the religious revolution inaugurated; The philosophy of this great change; 
Why the year 1764 was the fitting period of the close — Disclosures of 
Swedenborg — Era of Science; Priestly; Herschel; Mesmer; Gall and Spurz- 
heim,; Hutton; Werner; LaPlace; Hahnemann; Daguerre; Morse; Ker- 
choff and Bunsen — Spectroscope. 

A FTER thus tracing out these smaller cycles, and proving 
^ * their existence by an array of evidence which seemed im- 
pregnable, the question naturally arose, [How does this law of 
cycles apply to the whole Christian Era ? If we can discover and 
clearly demonstrate its application in this extended iield of in- 
quiry, and ascertain to what point in the included grand seven 
fold series of historical evolutions we have now arrived, we 
shall, indeed, be within reach of logical and prophetic results 
of unspeakable importance. Here, then, was forced upon our 
attention a vastly more comprehensive and interesting prob- 
lem; but again the line of inquiry seemed covered with im- 
penetrable darkness. Hypothesis after hypothesis again was 
started, but only to be exploded. My supposititious periods 
again refused to work with each other without chaos, con- 
fusion and the utter absence of a natural order of series of 
anything like coequal numbers of years. Unfortunately (and 
yet fortunately on account of incidental results) I set out with 
the preconceived thought that this Grand Cycle must necessa- 
rily end with the year i860. But I found that 7 would not 
divide into this number without a remainder, that 12 would 
divide into it with a quotient of 155, and 3 with a quotient of 
620 years; but that neither of these numbers would work into 
the actual facts of history in any serial order of natural division. 
I tried other numbers than i860 which I supposed might pos- 
sibly be terminal, but with no better results; and after thus 
groping about for more than three years and almost abandon- 
ing the quest in despair, it suddenly occurred to me, as if it 



44 THE END OF THE AGES. 

were the thought of a higher intelligence dropped into my 
mind, to take the numbers I already had, 7, 12 and 3, and work 
on them, and let the terminal period take care of itself. Now 7 
periods of 12 years, of course make 84 years; and the 3 cycles 
of 84 years each, which we have already ascertained make 252 
years. (Thus 7 X 12 x 3=252). According to the law by which 
the first three and the second three co-ordinate and consecu- 
tive members of any given series form a complex unit; rep- 
resented by the double triangle, or six pointed star, I now 
considered my three ascertained cycles of 84 years making 
252 years, as forming a one in the septave of the Grand Cycle 
which I was seeking to discover. Now 252 multiplied by 7, 
gives 1764; and the series of periods each of 252 years dura- 
tion, would stand thus; 1-252-504-756-1008-1260-1512-1764. 

How will this arrangement work with the facts of historical 
periodicity ? I first inquire, what is there in the year 1764 to 
distinguish it as the etid of one age and the begi?!/iuig of 
another ? and 1 soon found that which excited my surprise and 
deepest interest. But we will leave that part of the subject 
for a brief elucidation hereafter, and proceed to ascertain 
whether our intermediate periods of 252 years each are 
periods m fact 3.?, well as in theory. 

The question as to the exact year on which Christ was born, 
concerning which there is confessedly some little doubt, may 
here be neglected as of little consequence. The period fixed 
in the received chronology cannot be more than three or four 
years out of the way at the farthest; and it must be considered 
that in the revolutions of cycles there may be slight circum- 
stantial retardations and accelerations which will sometimes 
throw critical events a little out of the exact point of time at 
which they ought to occur, while by the average duration of a 
number of successive periods, the law of periodicity will stand 



THE END OF THE AGES. 45 

perfectly affirmed. We will take our era, then, as it has been 
universally received since the sixth century, and we will stai-t 
from the year i as being the point de facto and thus providen- 
tially, as it were, fixed for the beginning. 

Considering Christianity, then, as the moral or spiritual force 
which underlies the evolutions of the Era now to be brought 
under a rapid and very general review — for such it was in point 
oi fact, whatever questions materialists may entertain respect- 
ing its truthfulness — we will note the successive steps of its 
grand march down the course of time, with the ecclesiastical, 
political and social phases distinguishing each. 

FIRST PERIOD, I-252. 

The period commencing with the year i, and ending with 
Che year 252, may be appropriately termed the relatively chaotic 
period of the Christian Era. It was the period of propaga- 
tion, of the planting of churches; of struggles, trials and per- 
secutions; of apologies, and religious controversies with the 
heathens; and of independent action of local churches, bishop- 
rics, and ecclesiastical organizations. The church was not 
yet a compactly organized Unit, as it afterwards became. The 
Roman Empire with its Pagan ecclesiasticism, which, at the 
commencement of the era, was at the zenith of its power and 
glory, and which was to be the subject of conquest and appro- 
priation by the moral power of the new doctrine, soon after 
the commencement of this Period began to take the down- 
ward steps of old age and decrepitude. While this retrograde 
change in old Rome was going on, new enemies were being 
prepared for her from without, which in a subsequent age 
were to become converts and allies of the Christian Church; 
and all this by the operation of those laws which govern un- 



46 THE END OF THE AGES. 

foldings and interactions in the great Body of Humanity as a 
Whole. 

The closing part of this period and beginning of the next, 
was fittingly characterized by a confederation of seven tribes 
of Franks for the purpose of mutual protection against their 
enemies, and to carry on perpetual warfare against the Roman 
Empire. These people, inhabiting the country of the lower 
Rhine, first make their appearance in history about the year 
241. The Confederation referred to was initiated about the 
year 250, and probably attained to organic completeness 
about the year 252; as it appears they made their first incur- 
sion into Gaul in the year 255. This compact of tribes was 
the gerjn of the French nation which, in after times, as we shall 
yet see, sustained such an important complementary relation to 
the Roman Church, and in other respects was for centuries a 
most important element in the politics of Europe. 

SECOND PERIOD, 252-504. 

If the first period was relatively a chaotic period, this is a 
period of Forms and transformations, or the destruction of old 
forms and the establishment of new. The simple original 
Christian faith was, during this period, elaborated into a 
variety of definite, doctrinal forms, both heretical and ortho- 
dox according as judged by this or that standard of thought 
subsequently adopted. These diversities of views led to pro- 
longed and sometimes bitter disputes between different teach- 
ers', and thence to ecclesiastical Councils by which the great 
leading catholic doctrines were defined and set forth in es- 
sentially the same fundamental forms in which they have con- 
tinued to be received in the Church through all subsequent 
times. 

An event of great importance both to the Church and to the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 47 

political government occurred in the conversion of the Em- 
peror Constantine about the year 318, who soon after that date 
published laws and edicts favorable to the new religion, which 
gave it an undisturbed footing throughout the Roman Empire. 

Events in the outer world from the beginning to the end of 
this period, had a tendency consistent with that of develop- 
ments occurring in the Church. Constantine decided to remove 
the seat of Empire to Byzantium, which he rebuilt and called 
Constantinople, after his own name, leaving the western part 
of the Empire a prey to turbulent factions and to ambitious 
aspirants for imperial honors; and after being weakened by 
the assaults of its foes without, and the demoralization of its 
worse foes within, the Western Empire was finally overthrown 
by Odoacer, who marched with his hosts into Italy in 476. 

The confederation of Franks which, as we have seen, was 
formed at the close of the last period, had become crystallized, 
and prepared for its intended work by about the year 252; 
and three years afterwards it made its first incursion into 
Gaul. Thenceforward, as opportunities favored, this newly 
formed power continued to make occasional and formidable 
raids into the dominions of the Romans, until by a victory of 
Clovis, their leader, over the Roman general Syagrius at Sois- 
sonsin486, they succeeded in driving the Romans entirely out 
of Gaul, which this general had continued to hold for ten years 
after his imperial master, Romulus Augustulus, had been de- 
throned. In 496 Clovis gained a victory over the Allemanni 
at Tolbiac, near Cologne, immediately after which he was 
baptized into the Christian faith and anointed by St. Reme- 
gius. He then placed a crown on his own head at Rheims, 
and by this act became the founder of the Frefich Monarchy. In 
the example of embracing Christianity he was followed soon 
after by almost the whole French nation. These events, the 



48 THE END OF THE AGES. 

significance of which will become more apparent as we pro- 
ceed, fittingly mark the close of a Period, the commencement 
ai'l intermediate stages of which, as we have seen, were 
characterized by occurrences befitting a second period in a 
series, in which forms and transformations rise out of primal 
and relative chaos. 

THIRD PERIOD, 504-756. 

This is a Period distinguished by the more definite acquisi- 
tion of power and dominioji by the ecclesiastical and political 
forms which, in their secular modifications, were to rule the 
Grand Cycle. It commenced with the inauguration of the 
French Monarchy, and thus with the establishment of a politi- 
cal power which, during subsequent ages, and so long as it re- 
mained intact, served as a patron and support, and in two or 
three instances, as we shall see, as a restraint to the Popedom. 
It would almost seem that there was something prophetic of 
this perpetual liason between the two powers, in the title, 
^''Most Christian Majesty and eldest son of the Church^'" which the 
Pope conferred upon Clovis immediately after his baptism and 
anointing, which title was ever afterwards borne by the kings 
of France. 

Thenceforward the aggrandizement of the See of Rome was 
progressive without interruption, not only from the support 
and comfort derived from the French Monarchy, but from 
other causes. In the latter part of the sixth century we find 
Popes Pelagius II. and Gregory the Great disputing the eccle- 
siastical supremacy with the Bishop of Constantinople, and 
claiming to be the true universal Bishop. In 602 Phocas, the 
tyrant Emperor of Constantinople, in compliance with the re- 
quest of the Roman Pontiff, formally declared him Universal 
Bishop. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 49 

Though the Byzantine Emperor had long ceased to have any 
control in Western Europe, Belisarius, a general of Justinian, 
reconquered Rome and the adjacent provinces in 537, which 
were subsequently put under the government of an Exarch or 
Viceroy, having his seat at Ravenna. This Exarchate was 
conquered by Astolphus, king of the Lombards in 752; from 
him it was taken in 755 by Pepin, King of France, who do- 
nated it to the Pope of Rome on the same year and confirmed 
the gift in 756, the very year which ends our Third Period and 
begins a Fourth. This donation of Pepin to Pope Stephen III., 
was the origin of the temporal power of the Popedom., which contin- 
ued through subsequent centuries with slight interruptions, 
until the wars between France and Germany in 1870 compelled 
Napoleon III. to withdraw his troops from Rome. 

FOURTH PERIOD, 756-IO08. 

If any of our readers should be disposed to regard our divi- 
sions of time as arbitrary or artificial, they are invited to con- 
sider the marked events with which this period begins, and 
the peculiar characteristics which distinguish it throughout. 
The union of the temporal with the spiritual power — of the 
sceptre with the cross and keys — of the Church with the 
world — what event could have foreshadowed more striking de- 
velopments in the course of subsequent time ? And if a union 
of these two extremes was ever to come, what more appropri- 
ate place for it to occur than right here, in the middle of the 
scale between these two extremes, or in the Fourth Period of 
the scale of seven ? After this, of course, we may expect 
spiritual matters to become temporalized, and temporal mat- 
ters to become ecclesiasticised if not spiritualized, until the 
distinctive characteristics of both are measurably lost. It is 
a matter of no surprise that the point of the lowest ebb in the 
tide of human affairs, both temporal and spiritual, should 

4 



50 THE END OF THE AGES. 

soon be reached under this confounding of antagonizing 
forces; and hence the period now to be briefly traced is one 
that should be eminently characterized as the "dark age." 

The spirituality of the Church now becomes, in a great de- 
gree, immersed and lost in the spirit of this world, and practi- 
cal religion degenerates into the mummery of external forms, 
ceremonies and obedience to the dicta of the ecclesiastical 
rulers. The arts, sciences and literature of old Rome, neg- 
lected and despised, became buried and lost in the debris of 
the ruined empire, and ignorance covered the earth like a pall. 

But as if for the purpose of arresting this teadency at some 
future stage of its downward course, another event, important 
in its outgoings to the future centuries, occurred on the very 
year which begins our present period, and coincident with the 
assumption of the sceptre by the Pope. It was on that year 
that Abderaman, called also Almansor, the Moor, founded an 
independent kingdom in Spain. From the year 712, a por- 
tion of Spain increasing in extent, had been in possession of 
the Moors, which was governed by emirs subordinate to the 
viceroy of Africa; but civil wars prevailing among the Moham- 
medans, transferring the Galifat of Bagdad to another family, 
gave to Abderaman the opportunity of renouncing his allegi- 
ance to his former masters, and setting up his independent 
kingdom in 756. He established his residence at Cordova, 
which he made the seat of the arts, sciences and all branches 
of learning which were so zealously cultivated by the Moham- 
medans of the East of that age. From this Moorish seminary, 
teachers were furnished who, during the ensuing centuries, 
blessed Christian Europe with their acquisitions in the arts 
and sciences, and to their influence, in a high degree, Christen- 
dom owed the revival of learning which took place in the 
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 51 

Cha7-leviagne^ the son and successor of Pepin, was crowned 
and anointed Emperor by the Pope in the year 800. This 
event was considered as the ideal revival of the Roman Em- 
pire, but it proved to be, in many respects, a totally different 
affair, both in form and spirit. By the subsequent conquest 
of the Saxons, the Empire of Charlemagne was made to em- 
brace Germany, as it had previously been extended over the 
greater part of Italy. 

One of the chief features in the political and social con- 
ditions of the Empire of Charlemagne, which distinguished it 
from the Empire of Rome, consisted in the institution of Feu- 
dalism. The germs of this institution, if such it may be 
called, appeared immediately after the incursions of the north- 
ern tribes into the provinces of the Roman Empire. The 
military commanders by whose aid the conquests of these 
provinces had been made, were rewarded by their kings by 
apportionments of land to be occupied by themselves and their 
retainers, on condition that in war they would each furnish 
the king a certain quota of troops to serve for a given period 
of time. During the Period now under review, these little 
powers within the great or kingly power, crystallized and 
came to that degree of perfection which furnished a marked 
characteristic of the civilization of that age and the ages fol- 
lowing. These petty chieftains, under the several titles of 
Dukes, Barons, Governors of provinces. Counts, Marquises, 
etc., each exercising regal powers in his own particular domin- 
ions, would make laws, establish courts of judicature, coin 
money in his own name, and levy war against his private en- 
emies. The king had little more control over them than to 
summon them to military service in case of war, to judge 
them in his courts by their assembled peers, and to confiscate 
their estates in case of rebellion. Consequently, when agreed 



52 



THE END OF THE AGES. 



among themselves, they could make or unmake kings, and 
thus were often an important check upon the use or abuse of 
royal power. Their frequent contentions with each other, 
carried on according to an acknowledged right of private war- 
fare, necessitated contrivances for self defence, and hence 
originated during this period, almost all those old baronial 
castles the ruins of which still appear in Germany and some 
parts of France. 

The equilibrating phenomenon which occurs in the fourth or 
middle degree of all scales of seven, here appears in this quasi 
Republic of coequal barons or feudal lords as contrasted with 
the king; and though the masses of the people were enslaved, 
and ignorance, violence and rapacity prevailed everywhere, a 
common aspiration grew out of these very conditions which, 
though faint at first, and scarcely discernable, was destined by 
its increased unfolding as time rolled on, to work out some of 
the most important results for Europe and humanity. 

Charlemagne himself, after attaining to imperial dignity, 
was actuated by a laudable desire to improve the intellectual 
condition of his subjects, and to this end he invited to his 
court learned men from different countries, and commanded 
the bishops to establish local schools for the instruction of the 
young. These efforts, however, were of little avail as the time 
for their success had not yet arrived. But- from the Empire of 
Charlemagne, and the perfected feudalism of the times, we wit- 
ness the spectacle of modern Europisni begifining to rise up out of 
the shell of old Romanism, much as the animal kingdom at a fourth 
and corresponding period of the great geological Cycle, rose, 
through the amphibious forms of tadpole, frog, and salamander, 
from the tenantry of the ccean to become denizens of the 
earth and upper air. 

The end of this Period was characterized by a great panic 



THE END OF THE AGES. 53 

which prevailed throughout Christian Europe, caused by the 
apprehension that the world would be destroyed at the end of 
the thousand years, in fulfilment of a prediction recorded by 
St. John in the Apocalypse. Under the terror of this delusion, 
many transferred their property to the churches and monas- 
teries, and devoted themselves as slaves to the priests; and on 
the appearance of an eclipse of the sun or moon, multitudes 
of people would hide themselves in caves and other dark and 
sequestered places. 

FIFTH PERIOD, IO08-I260. 

Fifths in all scales of seven, in whatever department of na- 
ture, have the general characteristic of an aspiratory or uplifting 
tendency, as though seeking some desirable and as yet un- 
attained point of dignity which has just been brought into dis- 
tant view. Thus the fifth note in the musical scale according 
to harmonic law, seeks the eighth, which is the first of a new 
octave; and the blossom, which is the fifth development of the 
plant, has for its objective point the development of the inci- 
pient form of the new plant as contained in the ripened seed. 
We shall find this aspiratory and uprising tendency exempli- 
fied in a marked degree, in this fifth Period of our grand his- 
torical Cycle. In this view, we are borne out by a remark of 
Russell, who says: "The utmost point of decline society seems 
to have attained, was about the beginning of the eleventh cen- 
tury; when disorders of the feudal government, together with 
the corruptions of taste and manners consequent upon these, 
were arrived at their greatest excess; and accordingly from 
that era we can trace a succession of causes and events which, 
with different degrees of influence, contributed to abolish 
anarchy and barbarism, and introduce order and politeness." 
(Hist. Mod. Europe, Vol. I., Letter XVIII.) 



54 THE END OF THE AGES. 

The Ecclesiasticism, which in the previous ages had been 
content to remain subordinate to the civil power, now be- 
comes ambitious and aspires to supremacy. Mosheim in his 
Church History, Century XL, Part 11. , Chap. II., §2, says: 
"The power and majesty of the Roman Pontiffs attained their 
greatest height during this century; yet it was by gradual ad- 
vances, and with great difficulties. * * * With incessant 
efforts they strove to be acknowledged as not only the sov- 
ereign legislators of the church, superior to all councils, and 
the divinely constituted distributors of all the offices, and dis- 
pensers of all the property belonging to the church, but also — 
what was the extreme of arrogance — to be acknowledged as 
lords of the whole world, and the judges of kings, or kings 
over all kings." These ambitious aspirations were carried to 
their extreme point of practical realization by Hildebrand, a 
man of extraordinary firmness and ability who, under the title 
of Gregory VII., occupied the papal chair from 1073 to 1085. 
The Pope's bull of excommunication against an emperor was 
now considered sufficient to absolve his subjects from their 
allegiance to him, and caused them to avoid his presence as 
one tainted with an infectious disease, as was exemplified in 
several instances; and in 1176 we find this papal supremacy 
still illustrated in the phenomenon of the Emperor Frederick 
Barbarossa holding the stirrup of Pope Alexander III., as he 
mounted his horse. So much for the aspirations and uprisi?tgs 
in that direction. 

The superstition and fanaticism of this age gave birth to that 
wonderful phenomenon known as the Crtisades, commencing in 
1096, and continuing, intermittently in seven successive 
spasms, till 1249. The object of these wars was to recover 
Jerusalem and the Sepulcher of Christ from the possession of 
the Saracens. Reverence and rage, love and hate, devotion 



THE END OF THE AGES. 55 

and brutal passion — all the elements of human nature in its 
then low and undeveloped state — were summoned to put 
forth their utmost efforts for the achievement of that great 
end. The undisciplined hordes of Europe were precipitated 
upon the shores of Palestine. Millions of lives were lost in 
the struggle from first to last; and though victory crowned 
the Christian army, it was, in itself, neither important nor en- 
during. 

But this unseemly ebullition in the heart of the ages was 
productive of great good in another way. It brought the im- 
pure elements of human society to the surface, whence they 
could be removed. As the atmosphere, after a protracted and 
sultry calm, during which it has gathered noxious miasms, con- 
centrates its forces in the tornado, and discharges its poisons 
in exploding thunder, so was the stagnation of a dark and 
morally sultry age broken by that social tornado called the 
Crusades; and after all was over, the minds of men came out 
clearer and brighter, with new ideas and aspirations, and with 
new points of departure. 

Even the early part of this period witnessed a slight awak- 
ing of the human intellect. Local schools began to be formed 
during the first half of the eleventh century, but as yet they 
were neither numerous nor attended with any marked success. 
In the following century they increased in number and im- 
proved in quality, and began to be a sensible influence for the 
common good. The old works of Roman literature, that for 
centuries had been buried in the cloisters, began to be brought 
forth and studied. The arts and sciences, cultivated by the 
Moors of Spain, became more frequently the subjects of inquiry 
and study; and thus the age came to be distinguished by 
after historians, as ^Hhe age of the revival of lea^-ning.'" 

One of the beneficial institutions growing up in the eleventh 



56 THE END OF THE AGES. 

century, the governing sentiment of which was afterward 
greatly stimulated by the experiences of the crusades, was 
that of Chivalry or Knighthood. Its chief animus was a senti- 
ment of personal honor, a love of warlike adventure, especially 
in single combat, a lofty devotion to the female sex, and a 
general refinement and politeness of manners. That which is 
admired by all will be imitated by some; and though these sen- 
timents were often carried to fanatical and ridiculous excesses 
by the knights, the general influence of the order was to 
modify the asperities of manners in a rough and barbarous 
social state. 

There was also, during this Period, a decided elevation of 
the condition of the common people, partly as a reaction 
against the oppressions of their masters and partly as the ap- 
propriation of their share in the common results of general 
progressive developments. The feudal aristocracy and the 
bishops owned almost all the land, and the powerful barons, 
each having numerous retainers, despised all employment ex- 
cept that of war, and obeyed no laws except the laws of honor 
which they themselves had created. They looked upon those 
who were engaged in peaceful employments as ignoble and 
created only to obey and serve. Hence the common people, 
especially in the early part of this period, were constantly sub- 
ject to oppression and violence from the lordly classes, from 
which they could find no escape but in combination for mutual 
protection. Small cultivators of lands, whose produce was 
open to raids commanded by the barons, sometimes found 
means to purchase the protection of the counts until they ac- 
quired that power of self protection which accompanies accu- 
mulated wealth; while the artizans and mechanics banded to- 
gether, built high walls around their clustered habitations, 
which became cities; established their own forms of govern- 



THE END OF THE AGES. 57 

ment, as little Republics, and there pursued their various 
trades and manufacturing employments, and grew wealthy, in- 
telligent and in general sufficiently powerful to protect them- 
selves against invaders. At subsequent times, these cities, 
corporations and guilds would confederate, as necessity might 
seem to require, for mutual protection against their enemies. 
''Associations which, to the best men, appeared the only 
means of security against the disorders of the times, became 
so universal that almost everywhere, persons of the same 
trade or profession were closely united, and had certain laws 
and regulations among themselves." These little star- 
gleams out of the night of the ages, may prove useful indices 
to those who are groping in the darkness of social problems 
still unsolved, and which have become of special importance 
at this very hour. 

The political and social conditions of the common people 
improved from other causes. Commerce with the Levant 
arising from necessities created by the Crusades, enriched re- 
publican cities, and added to their power and importance. In 
1215, the nobility and people of England forced King John to 
sign the Magjia C/iarta Liber taium, or Great Charter of Liberty, 
which, by restricting kingly power, secured important privileges 
to all classes of people. Many of the Barons, after their re- 
turn from the crusades, found themselves poor, and were 
obliged to sell to the people privileges of corporation and 
self-government; and in 1258, the people of England who 
were free-holders obtained a voice in general legislation, by 
the establishment of the House of Commons. 

This, therefore, is the blossoming ^tx\C)<\oix\\^ tree of history, 
and its facts sustain its appropriate character as aspiring, aris- 
ing, advancing. It is in manifest correspondence with the 
Fifth Period of the great geological cycle — -that which pro- 



58 THE END OF THE AGES. 

duced (zrozoa^ or creatures that fly in the air. Alas, the same 
period produced dragons and serpents as a counter develop- 
ment; and here, in the human period, we may find, in the ec- 
clesiastical usurpations, the nidus of that "great red dragon" 
with seven heads and ten horns, which St. John in apocalyptic 
vision saw as giving trouble in after times. It is just to say 
however, that in this age of ambitious aspirations, baronial, 
kingly, and popular contentions and general dividing influ- 
ences, the papal power and authority was the bo7id of the Chris- 
tian world. 

SIXTH PERIOD, 1260-1512. 

From the first Diet of the Hanseatic League to the first germs of the Refor- 
mation. 

Still following the guidance of our universal typical series, 
and the correspondences of its several parts, we might expect 
to find in this Period the characteristics oi fruitage and com- 
pleteness. What are the facts ? We shall consider them in 
their two fold relations to the ecclesiastical and secular affairs 
of the world. 

During the previous Period and a part of the present one, 
the Church, in its assumed supremacy over the potentates of 
the earth, grew rich in all the worldly resources of the times. 
The Sovereign Pontiff had but to will and the magnetism of 
his volitions vibrated through all the nerves of obedient 
Christendom. But while the secular arm of the Vatican was 
limited in the possibilities of its growth, the whole world with- 
out was in line of progressive development, and a period must 
at length arrive when popish power over secular affairs would 
fall under greater restrictions. This crisis arrived in 1303, 
when Philip the Fair, King of France, effectually rebuked the 
arrogance of Boniface VIII., publicly accusing him of heresy. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 59 

simony, dishonesty and other enormities, and proposing the 
calling of a council to depose the guilty pontiff from his 
office. In an insurrection stirred up by Philip, the Pope was 
captured, and was to have been tried before a council assembled 
at Lyons, but died before he could be removed from Rome. 
Two years after this, Philip caused the election of Bertrand de 
Got, a Frenchman, who, under the name of Clement V., trans- 
ferred the pontificial court to Avignon in France, where it re- 
mained for seventy years. This was the cause of a great schism 
in the Latin Church, and, during a portion of this period, two 
Popes reigned, one at Avignon and one at Rome. 

But though in consequence of these vicissitudes, the papal 
authority over temporal rulers suffered a decline from which it 
could never recover, the Church was still strong in the reverence 
and affections of the people of all classes, and to her shrine 
were brought the richest offerings of the arts, which flourished 
in a high degree of perfection during the latter portion of this 
period. Must of the grand old churches and cathedrals were 
built during this age, which remain the wonder and admiration 
of the world at the present time; and these were adorned with 
statuary and paintings in the best style of art. Retiring 
within these magnificent architectural structures, the Roman 
Catholic Church became absorbed in the contemplation of her 
statues and pictures of the saints, and while listening to the 
notes of her splendid organs, and the lullaby of her Gregorian 
chants, she sank into a moral stupor, and as a power to lead 
the civilization and intellectual progress of the world, she 
became practically dead, and has remained so to this day. 

Learning, having revived in the previous age, attains in this 
a comparatively high degree of development. Academies, 
colleges and universities were erected in the principal cities of 
Europe. In these all the liberal arts and sciences then known 



6o THE END OF THE AGES. 

were taught, the same being distributed into several faculties, 
as at this day. Libraries were also collected, and men of learn- 
ing were excited by honors and rewards to aspire after fame 
and distinction. 

To this general intellectual unfolding, the ar^t of printing, dis- 
covered about the year 1440, gave an additional and most 
powerful impetus, by facilitating the multiplication of copies 
of books which had previously been produced only by the slow 
and laborious work of the penman. Moreover, after the fall 
of the Greek Empire by the capture of Constantinople in 1453, 
most of the learned men of that nation emigrated to different 
parts of Europe, and, employing themselves as teachers, every- 
where diffused the blessings of their acquirements in literature 
and the arts. 

The civil and social conditions of the world also advanced, 
during this Period, to that state of development which, under 
the possibilities of the old regime, may be called mature. The 
free corporations and guilds which originated during the pre- 
vious Period, now became largely developed, particularly in 
Italy and Germany. The political powers of the King and 
nobles were now counterpoised by a tiers e'tat, or third state, 
so called, which consisted of the common people, as represented 
by their own chosen deputies, in the legislative councils of the 
nation. A definite form was given to this liberal innovation, 
by Philip the Fair, King of France, in order to make himself 
popular with the people during his controversy with Pope 
Boniface VIII,, already noticed. England, generally in ad- 
vance of other nations in her bold strides toward freedom, had 
attained to something of this kind during the preceding age, 
in the form of her Magna Charta and her House of Commons; 
but now Germany, as well as France concedes these rights to 
the common people. At first these representatives from the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 6l 

masses were subjected to great humiliations, and were obliged 
to remain outside of the bar and receive and answer the prop- 
ositions of the king upon their knees, while the clergy were 
seated on the king's right hand and the nobility on his left. 
But the steady march of civilization gradually mitigated these 
remaining rigors, until at a period much nearer our own time, 
the tiers etat, or third state, became virtually the nation itself. 

That important confederacy of manufacturing and commer- 
cial cities called the Ha7iseatic League began to germinate 
about the year 1239; and in 1260 (the first year of our Sixth 
Period,) its members had become so numerous that \\.s first diet 
was held at Lubeck, the chief city of the League. Cities 
afterwards joined the League to the number of eighty-five, 
which were divided into four provinces, each having a chief city. 
Charters from kings and princes gave firmness to this organi- 
zation, and in 1364, an act of confederation was drawn up at 
Cologne, in which the objects of the League were more defi- 
nitely declared — "to protect themselves and their commerce 
from pillage; to guard and extend the foreign commerce of 
allied cities; and so far as possible, to monopolize it; to man- 
age the administration of justice within the limits of the con- 
federacy, etc." The political importance of this League now 
speedily increased, and by its belligerent power, and its wealth 
acquired by manufactures and commerce, it was ultimately 
enabled to control crowns and kingdoms. 

Princes and kings meanwhile learned the advantages of 
commerce to their own dominions. The magnetic needle, 
which had been discovered by the Arabs about the year 1150, 
was now brought into its higher uses, and navigation, which 
previously, had been mostly confined to the Mediterranean and 
Baltic Seas, and had seldom ventured out of the sight of land, 
now launched boldly upon the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the 



62 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Azores, the Cape Verdes and other islands before unknown — 
exploring the western coast of Africa, doubling the Cape of 
Good Hope and opening commerce with the East Indies. In 
these maritime adventures, the little obscure kingdom of 
Portugal took the lead; to the genius of one of its enlightened 
princes, Don Henry, the world owes the first adequate dis- 
covery of the mathematical guides afforded by the positions of 
the stars, and by' the tendency of the magnetic needle to point 
to the north. 

How independent of human designs or even conceptions are 
the forces which predetermine the course of events in the 
world! An Intelligence above man seems, at this point of his- 
tory, to have forecast the necessities of the future, and 
planned for their supply. On the one hand, there is an ec- 
clesiastical force of restriction that seeks to tether the minds 
of men to old forms and standards — which assume to be the 
only possible ones authorized and divine; on the other, there 
is a general tide of awakened mentality which is constantly 
rising higher and higher, and is surging more and more vio- 
lently against the adamantine walls which the church of Rome 
has built to confine it. 

Ultimately this mental tide, on whose buoyant forces the 
uplifting of the human race is dependent, must rise above all 
barriers, and must be provided with an outlet and a theater in 
which it may continue to freely rise and expand forevermore. 
To supply this exigency, dreams were sent from heaven to the 
mind of a Christopher Columbus, picturing an existing con- 
tinent upon some far off western shore of the Atlantic Ocean. 
With the pictured thought comes the inspiration of an un- 
doubting faith; and fired with the ambition of proving the 
reality of that which had thus been shadowed, Columbus, with 
the patronage of the king and queen of Spain, organizes his 



THE END OF THE AGES. 63 

voyage of exploration, and an island near the coast of the 
American Continent is discovered in the year 1492. Other 
exploring voyages were set on foot, and, under the patronage 
of Henry VII. of England, the Cabots discovered the North 
American Continent in 1497, and Columbus, on a third voyage, 
discovered South America in 1498. Thence, after many years 
of voyages and explorations, a sufficient amount of knowledge 
concerning the New World had been acquired to lay it open 
for settlement by Europeans. 

We have now drawn near the end of our Sixth Period. It 
is claimed that its prominent characteristic phases as here 
pointed out, fully warrant us in des[gna.ting it a.s a. Mafurwg 
Period, or a Period of the Frititage of all the past — corres- 
ponding, in principle, to sixth degrees in all natural series of 
seven, according to the philosophy by which we have thus far 
been guided in our investigations. 

SEVENTH PERIOD, 1512-1764. 

This is the period of the harvesting both of the wheat and 
the tares; the separating of the wheat and chaff, the dis- 
integration of old forms, and the planting of the seeds of a 
new order of ecclesiastical, political and social affairs. A 
crisis had now arrived which rendered great and immediate 
changes unavoidable. The Roman Church, including all of its 
ecclesiastical orders, from Pope to mendicant friar, had be- 
come shamefully corrupt. History has painted some of the 
last Popes of the previous period, as monsters of vice, arro- 
gance and dishonesty. Roderic Borgia, who, under the name 
of Alexander VI., occupied the papal chair from 1492 to 1503, 
is charged with the most abominable licentiousness and crime, 
and for his cruelties is sometimes called the Nero of the 
Popes. It is said that he died by poison, drank through mis- 



64 THE END OF THE AGES. 

take, which he and his son Caesar had mixed for others. His 
successor, Pius III., died at the end of twenty-six days, and was 
succeeded by Julian Roveria under the name of Julius II., 
who, it is said, obtained the pontificate by fraud and bribery. 
Besides other vices with which he is charged, this pontiff was 
characterized by great ferocity, arrogance, vanity, and a mad 
passion for war; and while he spent his time in camps, the dis- 
cipline of the church and the spirit of religion sank to even a 
lower depth than that which it had before attained. 

The monastic orders of all descriptions swarmed with ignor- 
ant, idle and debauched people whose lives were so infamous 
that the common people regarded them with contempt and 
abhorrence. There were still some good men, both of the 
sacerdotal orders and the laity, who deplored these evils and 
sought to reform them; but these were almost everywhere met 
with overpowering resistance, and received abuse and injury in 
return for their well meant endeavors. 

At length Louis XII., king of France, disgusted with these 
scandals and disorders, and more particularly desiring to rebuke 
the conduct of Pope Julius, published a threat, stamped upon 
the coins he issued, that he would completely overthrow the 
Romish power, which he designated by the name of Babylon. 
Mosheim adds to this statement, that "some of the cardinals of 
the Romish Court, relying on the authority of this king and 
the Emperor, summoned a council at Pisa in 15 ii to curb the 
madness of the Pontiff, and to deliberate on measures for the 
Reformation of the intolerable corruptions in religion. But 
Julius, relying upon the power of his allies and his own re- 
sources, laughed at this opposition. Yet not to neglect means 
for frustrating these designs, he called another Council to meet 
in the Lateran palace A. D. 15 12. In this body, the acts of the 
assembly at Pisa of the year before were spiritedly con- 



THE END OF THE AGES. 65 

demned and annulled, and undoubtedly severe anathemas 
would have followed against Louis and others if death had not 
overtaken the audacious pontiff, A. D. 15 12." 

Here, then, is the plain issue defined, as it had not been de- 
fined before, between the corruptionists of the church and 
those in her bosom who were desirous of reform; and here is 
a plain and pointed rejection by the sovereign and supposed 
'■'■infallible'''' ruler of the church, of the unquestionably just de- 
mands of those who sought the mitigation of the disorders and 
wrongs which existed in her communion. The reader will 
please notice the year on which this event falls — 1512 — the 
very year of the close of the Sixth and the commencement of 
the Seventh Period of our chronological series, as determined 
by the law here claimed to govern the evolutions of the cycle. 

What follows ? The Lateran Council that had been 
cissembled by Julius, continued in session for some time after 
the death of that Pontiff, and Leo X., his successor, took good 
care that nothing should be sanctioned by the assembled 
prelates that might seem favorable to the views of the reform- 
ers. All efforts to reach the desired reforms by the ordinary 
methods of ecclesiastical adjustment thus proving fruitless, the 
tide of opposition to these abuses, now risen so high and 
grown so strong as to be no longer repressible, must seek other 
channels of outlet and the breach of its barriers must naturally 
occur at the weakest point — concerning which we will now say 
a few words. 

Among the artifices of priestcraft to fleece the people, was 
the sale of indulgences^ so called, by which the punishment of 
sins was remitted in consideration of contributions of money to 
pious uses. This practice originated in the eleventh century, 
when it was used by local bishops, though rather sparingly, for 
the purpose of raising money to meet the exigencies of the 

5 



66 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Crusades. The Popes subsequently monopolized this new 
source of revenue to themselves and those upon whom they 
might expressly confer the authority to use it. At the period 
of which we are now speaking, the sale of indulgences had be- 
come more common than in previous times, and was a fruitful 
source of revenue to the Pope, being often used by him for 
personal objects, as well as to build and adorn churches and 
support other ecclesiastical enterprises. The ignorant and 
timid were persuaded that by thus cancelling beforehand the 
penalties due to their sins, great advantage would be likely to 
accrue to their souls. Most of the better informed however 
regarded the practice as a swindle as odius to its perpetrators 
as it was debasing and demoralizing to its victims; while 
princes could not help seeing that it impoverished their sub- 
jects in proportion as it enriched the Church. It was in the 
matter of this traffic in indulgences, that the Roman hierarchy 
exposed its most vulnerable point to the direct attacks of an 
outraged public sentiment; and when the monk, Johann Tetzel, 
sent by the archbishop of Metz, under the sanction of the 
pope, appeared at Wittenberg to solicit the people to purchase 
the expiation of their sins, future as well as past, the storm 
cloud which had long been gathering over the whole brood of 
ecclesiastical corruptions, burst in the voice of a Luther, in 
tones of thunder which reverberated throughout Europe, loud 
enough to shake the Papal throne itself. The tocsin of religi- 
ous revolution was soon sounded throughout all Germany, 
Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, England, and a fire was kindled 
in every nation in Christendom which has not ceased to burn 

to this day. 

***** 

Let us pause here, for a moment, and endeavor to catch some 
farther glimpses of the true philosophy of this great change. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 67 

The Structure of the Roman Catholic Church was a legiti- 
mate growth of the ages through which it passed and of the 
various conditions acting upon its germinal principles, from 
without. Being a naturally accreted organism, formed out of 
only such materials as the early and middle ages afforded, she 
was, of course, the best comprehensive religious institution 
that was possible for the people and nations embraced within 
her moral jurisdiction, during the centuries and stages of 
human growth which legitimately came under her supreme 
authority. She had the credit of conserving in her secret 
bosom, the truths and spiritual principles brought to the 
world by Jesus, however these may have become obscured 
among the darkening mazes of her own factitious and humanly 
constructed creeds and formulas; and these truths and princi- 
ples perceived and felt by the favorably constituted and in- 
spired few, never ceased to be potential in the development of 
good and holy men and women who shone as lights in dark 
places, and many of whose names are now justly enrolled in 
the calendar of saints. 

But there was nothing especially in those ages of general 
moral depression to prevent the organism of the church from 
becoming an instrument also of human ambition and selfish- 
ness, such as is too conspicuously displayed on every page of 
her history during many centuries. But while her pontifical 
and priestly rulers continued to preserve in their consciences 
the reminiscence of the spiritual and supreme principles which 
formed the foundation stones on which the whole ecclesiastical 
structure rested, the church, a ujiit in herself, naturally 
exerted an influence to draw together and unite in the bonds 
of mutual obligation, all nations and all branches of human 
society that were embraced within her fold. In this capacity 
she insensibly led them forward to higher stages of moral 



68 THE END OF THE AGES. 

culture and refinement; whereas without her common motherly 
influence, they would have remained in their original condition 
as conflicting barbarian tribes. 

But if as viewed in this light, she possessed those divine 
elements which rendered her "a power ordained of God," as is 
said of some other "powers that be," it is also true that the 
increasing, and finally superabounding human elements that 
became mixed up in her composition, were such as to fix upon 
her the stamp of mortality and limit her sphere of usefulness 
to the transient condition of the ages to which she was more 
especially adapted. The limit thus determined was in a great 
degree attained, when in her dead ripeness at the end of her 
sixth age she undertook to restrain not only the intellects but 
the moral sense of the most intelligent and virtuous of her 
people, and when by exerting the whole force of her authority 
to perpetuate abuses and crimes which had become rank in 
her sacerdotal orders, she became to that fatal extent, 21. positive 
power of evil. 

It was not Luther that made the Reformation, but rather 
the Reformation that made Luther. The spirit and power of 
it, as the spirit and power of God, had long been slumbering in 
the convictions and moral sense of the people, and its constantly 
accumulating force under as constantly accumulating provoca- 
tions by the corrupt church on the other side determined the 
absolute certainty of a final revolutionary explosion, and ren- 
dered its occurrence a mere matter of time. Luther oviXy gave 
voice to this popular spirit and tendency, which commenced its 
insensible development even long before he was born, and only 
reached its climax in his time; and even had Luther never 
existed, it would have found utterance through other tongues 
and pens, and final results would have been about the same. 

Of the conflicts of the warring elements of Catholicism and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 69 

Protestantism which came in the course of this religious revo- 
lution, and of the events and changes in the political and social 
world to which these gave rise, we will not now speak partic- 
ularly, inasmuch as this same period in the history of Christen- 
dom will be traversed when we bring to view a sub-cycle of 
history of which we have not heretofore definitely spoken. It 
merely remains to be remarked, that as the Roman Catholic 
church was an organization of the middle ages, and suited to 
meet the exigencies of middle age conditions; so, as scourged 
and chastened by Luther and his co-reformers and successors, 
it was legitimately, and in divine order, perpetuated to the close 
of another aeon of 252 years, and, as an external institution, 
even to the present time, for the purpose of meeting the exi- 
gencies of 7niddle age conditions which still linger in some parts of 
the inental and social world. But those who are familiar with 
history scarcely need to be told, that from the close of the 
sixth period to the present time, the Catholic church has 
lacked the power to lead the progress of human society, 
either as to science, philosophy, morals or civilization ; or if 
this assertion should be disputed, the proof of its truthfulness 
will incidentally appear in subsequent chapters. 

But what is there to mark the year 1764, or about that time, 
as the close of the seventh period, and of this Grand Cycle, 
and the commencement of a new? This was the next ques- 
tion that occurred to the writer's mind after perceiving the 
wonderful verification of the law of the seven fold series in 
the succession of these Periods, each of 252 years, and each 
in its numerical order, unmistakably exhibiting the peculiar 
characteristics which the law would assign to it. It did not 
require a very lengthy inspection of the pages of history from 
that time to the present, to disclose the answer. In the first 
place, it was seen that this date falls in the midst of the career 



yo THE END OF THE AGES. 

of a great and mighty mind which God had prepared and sent 
into the world to make such philosophic, religious and spiritual 
disclosures as could only serve for the foundation of a New 
Age. The thirty volumes of science and philosophy, and about 
the same number of volumes of disclosures of inner and spirit- 
ual mysteries, left to the world by Emanuel Swedenborg — 
must ever shine like a galaxy of stars in the intellectual firmament. 

Now it is a startling fact, to be cited in this connection, 
that Swedenborg, apparently without any conception of our 
Law of Cycles in history, announced and described in an elabo- 
rate work, the last jtidgrticnt in the spiritual world as incident to 
the consummation of the church on earth. This occurrence, 
the incidents of which he professes to have personally witnessed 
in his conditions of spiritual illumination, is stated to have 
taken place during the year 1757 — only seven years before 
the year 1764 — and as a legitimate sequence of the same, he 
prophetically disclosed the approaching advent of a New 
Church and a New Age — figuratively — a New Heaven and a New 
Earth. 

Did room permit, it might be shown that specific develop- 
ments in the religious world which followed this period, were 
such as to corroborate this announcement; but it will not es- 
cape the notice of even the superficial student of the religious 
history of the time, that ecclesiasticism soon after that period, 
began to relax the rigidity of its control over the minds of 
men, that theology began to lay off the more gloomy features 
which it had borrowed from the dark ages, being compelled 
to succumb to the influence of science and the progress of 
thought; that Religion became less prescriptive and more 
mild, gentle and charitable, until at this day those frowning 
walls which formerly divided religious denominations, have 
dwindled down to landmarks traced, as it were, in the sand, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 7 1, 

over which the devotees of different sects may pass and repass 
and always find neighborly communion and sympathy. 

Again as to secular affairs, we have already seen that the 
very year 1764 witnessed the projection of that line of policy 
on the part of the British government towards her American 
Colonies, which led to revolution and the birth of the American 
Republic twelve years after; and the last decade of the cen- 
tury witnessed that revolutionary tornado in France which 
almost tore up Europe by the roots in its successful efforts to 
correct many old and festering political, ecclesiastical and 
social wrongs. 

Moreover, the year 1764 and the times following shortly 
after, witnessed the initiament of that magnificent line of dis- 
covery in science and the mechanic arts which, unfolding as it pro- 
ceeded, has contributed to make this nineteenth century 
brilliant beyond all its predecessors. It wsls on that very year 
that the steam engine, which before had been comparatively use- 
less, was brought into practical form by James Watt. And 
see what that blind and enslaved giant is now doing for man- 
kind! Chained down to the floors of our manufactories, toil- 
ing, sweating, panting, groaning, and doing the work of a 
thousand men; propelling our ships across oceans or harnessed 
to our railway cars, drawing immense burdens of merchandise 
or human passengers across continents with a rapidity ex- 
ceeding that of the swiftest charger. It is said that in the 
single kingdom of Great Britain the steam engine is doing 
every day an amount of work equal to that which could be ac- 
complished by six hundred million manpower! What a marvel! 
What an agent for civilization and the progress of a whole 
race ! 

Again, it was about the year 1764 that Dr. Joseph Priestly 
made the initial discoveries which led to the progressive un- 



72 THE END OF THE AGES. 

folding of the whole stupendous and incalculably useful science 
of Chemistry as known at this day. It was about the same 
time that Sir William Herschel turned his attention to the im- 
provement of the telescope and by his brilliant success was 
subsequently enabled to add immensely to the sum of human 
knowledge respecting the stellar universe. Mesmer soon 
afterwards contributed Animal Magnetism, the claims of which 
are no longer disputed except by the learnedly ignorant: Gall 
and Spurheim contributed Phrenology; Hutton and Werner 
brought Geology; Cuvier added Palaeontology and Comparative 
Anatomy; Count Rumford demonstrated the correlation and 
conservation of forces; Hahnemann enriched the medical 
world with Homoeopathy; Daguerre with Photography; Morse 
with Telegraphy; and on the year i860 Kierchoft and Bunsen 
brought out their magnificent discovery of the spectroscope, 
by means of which the very stars of heaven are chemically 
analyzed, and their directions and rates of motion determined. 
It is submitted that this sudden outburst of intellectual 
light is susceptible of but one interpretation ; and that is, that 
the night of an old cycle is past, and the morning of a new has 
burst upon the world, bringing its inexhaustible treasures of 
light and wisdom, not exclusively to any one nation or hierar- 
chy, but to the ivJwle 7'ace of man. 

NUMERICAL CURIOSITIES IN THIS SCHEME. 

Having this whole grand historical scheme before me, in- 
cluding the smaller cycles of 84, and the larger one of 
1764 years, and having constructed a table or diagram to re- 
present each so that I could readly compare them with each 
other, both in their entireness and their mutually correspond- 
ing parts, I was struck with some curious relations of the 
numbers which appeared, and of which these were the factors. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 73 

The dates dividing the grand cycle into equal periods with the 

sums of their added digits, stand thus: 

A. D. 

1st Period ------- -j 

252= 9 
2d " 

504= 9 
3d ------- - ] 

756= 18 

4th " - - ] 

1008= 9 
5th ------- - ] 

I 1260= 9 

6th " - ] 

1512= 9 
7th "-----/- - 

' 1764= 18 

It will be observed that in each of these period numbers 
the sum of the digits is 9 or two 9's (18). 

Then it may be observed, that the period of 252 years will 
divide into one triad of 84, that is 7 times 12 years which is 
our smaller cycle; then the same number can be divided into 
7 triads of 12 years, or 7 times 36 years; also 12 triads of 7, 
or 12 times 21 years. 

Then the great cycle of 1764 years will divide into one triad 
of 588 years, which comprises 7 of our smaller cycles of 84 
years. Then the same number, 1764, will divide into 84 parts 
of 21 years each; 7 parts of 252 years each, and 12 parts of 
147 years each. Separate the digits of this last number thus: 
I, 4, 7, and they will point to the ist, 4th, and 7th members of 
our scale, or the beginnings middle^ and the end — the alpha, 
the iota, and the omega, which are the great essentials. Then 
add them together, thus i-|-4-(-7, and the sum is 12! 

Of course these harmonies all result from the interplay of the 
factors 7, 12 and 3; but as no other numbers will work together 
so harmoniously and so accordant with the actual facts of nature, 
they seem really to afford the key to the structure and methods 
of nature, not only in respect to history, but to all other grand 
and comprehensive themes of science and philosophy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DISCOVERY OF AN ANTERIOR CYCLE IN THE MODERN SERIES 1524-1608. 

A suggestive error which led to an important truth; True order of the Series; 
The Republic of 1776-1860, a Fourth instead of a. Third — Luther's Decla- 
ration of Independence from Rome in 1524 commences the First modern 
cycle — First Period, 1524-1536: Luther in swingingloose from Rome, is 
followed by several German Princes — New structure of religious and politi- 
cal society commenced; Peasants' war; Anabaptist prophets; Diets as- 
sembled by Emperor Charles V., to consider case of Reformers; End of 12 
years finds the Pope, Paul IIL, on the defensive; Overthrow of Papal 
power in England — Second Period, 1536-154S: Council of Trent — War 
against Reformers with unfavorable results to latter — "Articles of the In- 
terim;" Question in the hands of the Secular Power — Pope concedes that 
reforms are needed — Third Period, 1548-1560: "Articles of the Interim" 
unsatisfactory to both parties — Council of Trent revived — Ambitious de- 
signs of the Emperor; Battle of Inspruck; Emperor defeated and com- 
pelled to accede to conditions securing religious liberty in Germany — Em- 
peror abdicates, leaving his son Philip king of Spain and the Netherlands, 
as Philip II. — Philip devolves the government of Netherlands on his sis- 
ter, with Granvalla her minister — Fourth Period, 1560-1572: Character- 
istics of a Fourth — Spanish Inquisition in Holland — Its cruelties provoke 
resistance; Granvalla replaced by Alva; Thousands sacrificed and rebellion 
provoked — William I. of Orange — Church of England crystallized; Dis- 
sentients, taking the name of Puritans, organize in 1566, the middle of the 
cycle — Fifth Period, i 572-1 584; Massacre of the night of St. Bartholo- 
mew; Fleet of 150 privateers, always successful against Spanish — William 
I. sovereign commander over four provinces; Other Netherland provinces 
unite — The Holland Republic proclaimed; William assassinated 1584 — 
Sixth Period, 1584-1596: Prince Maurice, William's successor, an accom- 
plished general; Takes Breda by surprise and delivers four provinces^ 
Constantly victorious till Spanish power was broken — Aid from England ; 
Defeat of the "Invincible Armada." — Seventh Period, 1596-1608: 
Ripening seeds; Prosperity of Holland and decline of Spanish power — 
Suspension of arms and negotiations opened in 1607 — Peace of 12 years 
declared in 1609- — Spain expels Morescoes. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 75 

TT TE will give the history of another discovery, the facts of 
* • which we prefer to present just as they occurred, in order 
to satisfy the skepticism of those who, after taking a mere 
surface glance at this system, may imagine that it is the artifi- 
cial creation of a speculative mind which may not, after all, 
have any solid foundation. Revolving these marvelous facts 
over in my thoughts in every possible way, and subjecting them 
to every imaginable test, I discovered the incompleteness in one 
part of my theory, to which I have alluded on a previous page. 
In the several cycles of eighty-four years which I have al- 
ready traced, from the first settlement on the James River in 
1607-8, to i860, I had made the cycle of our American history 
as a republic, the third natural in a series of cycles. When 
the question as to the natural order of the series came up, I 
instantly saw that a Republic, such as we have, is not a Third 
in the order of development in human society, but must be a 
Fourth. The natural order is as follows: First, Savagism, or 
the wild, chaotic and lawless individualism of infantile human 
nature; Second, Barbarism, clanship or tribal compacts, gov- 
erned by customs which have the force of unwritten laws; 
Third, -Despotism or Monarchy, and the first form of nationali- 
ties which are held together by a central power called a King 
or Emperor. As the fourth color of the prismatic spectrum 
and the fourth note of the diatomic scale, are each and re- 
spectively complementary of the ^fr.?/, so the fourth develop- 
ment in the order of the progress of human society ought to 
be also complementary of the first. If the first condition, 
therefore, is that of crude, chaotic, lawless individualism com- 
monly called savagism, the fourth should be that of cultiva- 
ted, consociated law obeying and self-governed individualism. 
This condition would be that of just such a Republican 
Government as we have had since the Declaration of Independ- 



76 THE END OF THE AGES. 

ence in 1776. It is the middle of the scale of seven with 
three other developments to come after it, but on which we 
will not speculate at present, leaving that thought to be more 
distinctly worked up in a chapter to be given hereafter. Being 
in the middle of the scale, it is the equilibrating, equalizing 
or "equal rights" development, and this also characterizes it 
as a Republic. 

Seeing the necessity, therefore, of regarding our Republic 
as a fourth development in the natural order of the series, I 
was compelled to look for a cycle anterior to the one with 
which we started, in order that the whole, so far as discovered, 
might county^;//'. Does that cycle actually exist ? If not we 
certainly cannot artificially jnake one to fill up the gap, and 
our theory will at this point be faulty. But let us see. 

Counting 84 years back of the year 1608, the time of the 
first successful settlement within our present national territory, 
we are brought to the year 1524. Did anything occur on 
that year to distinguish it as a Beginning ? What are the 
facts ? Luther, it is true, commenced agitating for reform in 
1517, but he still maintained loyalty to the Roman Church. 
In 15 19, he was excommunicated by the Pope and his writings 
were burned; to which he replied the next year by indignantly 
burning the Pope's bull, and the decretals of the papal canon; 
but his resistance was yet only to the Pope, believing as 
many good Catholics did, and do still, that the supreme au- 
thority of the church resides in the ecclesiastical council. In 
1521 he made his famous journey to Worms, "spite of devils 
thick as tiles on the roofs of the houses," and uttered before 
the Diet his memorable saying, '■'■Here I stand; I cannot alter, so 
help me God:" but this answer was made to a political rather 
than an ecclesiastical body, and Luther stood still as a re- 
former of the Church, and not as a rebel against the Church. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 77 

Soon after that he commenced translating the New Testament 
into the German language; but this was still a measure of re- 
form, and not an act of hostility to the ecclesiastical establish- 
ment perse. But in 1^24 he dropped the cowl ^ seceded frotfi the 
monkish order, and severed the last link of his connection ivith the 
Church of Ro7ne. 

FIRST PERIOD, 1524-1536. 

With this Declaration of Ijidependence from Rome by Luther, 
in which he was immediately followed by several German 
princes, commenced the formation of a structure of religious 
and political society outside of Rome, and hence this date — 
1524 — should be regarded as the date of the foundation of a 
religion based upon the right of private judgment, and the 
beginning of modern civilization. 

The same period was characterized by an extensive popular 
uprising of the common people in Germany, which is known 
in history as the Peasants' War. 

Notwithstanding the great mitigation of the oppressions to 
which, under the feudal regime, the lower classes had been sub- 
jected during the previous three or four centuries, some of the 
barons still persisted in loading the tillers of the soil with bur-, 
dens well nigh insupportable. In many places these peasants 
were still treated as slaves or serfs, and were bought and sold 
with the land on which they had their habitations. Partaking 
of the restless spirit of the age, they rose against the magis- 
trates and endeavored to throw off their burdens. A class of 
religious fanatics, known as Anabaptists, which arose about the 
same time, coalesced with these uprising peasants, and by their 
crude and ignorant prophecies, and their alleged revelations, 
induced the malcontents to take up arms and led them into 
many disorders and extravagances. This insurrection, after 



y8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

several minor conflicts, was efi'ectively suppressed by a 
decisive victory over its main army by the German princes at 
Mulhausen in 1525; the slain, on both sides, from the begin- 
ning to the end of the war, numbering more than one hundred 
thousand. 

It will be sufficient for our purpose to trace merely the bold 
outlines of the evolutions of this historical cycle, omitting all 
particulars and minutiae that are not absolutely necessary to 
render the progressive order of events intelligible. After the 
secession of Luther from the Roman Church in 1524, a series 
of Diets were assembled at the instance of the Emperor and 
the German princes, for the purpose of deciding on matters in 
the controversy between the followers of Luther and the 
Catholics. The decisions of these bodies were sometimes 
favorable and sometimes unfavorable to the Reformers; and at 
the end of the first twelve year Period — 1536 — we find the 
Pope, Paul III., thrown upon the defensive, and calling a 
Council to assemble at Mantua, that he might hurl its adverse 
decisions upon the heads of the Reformers. For some reason, 
however, the Council did not assemble, and the call was not 
renewed. 

This Period, also, witnessed the overthrow of the papal power 
in England by Henry VIII. (in 1533), and the establishment 
of the rudimentary forms of what subsequently crystallized as 
the Church of England. 

SECOND PERIOD, 1536-1548. 

During this period the contest between the two parties went 
on much as before, with several incidents that should be 
particularly noted. One of these was the convocation by 
Paul III., of the Council of Trent, to pass decision upOn 



THE END OF THE AGES. 79 

matters of controversy with the Protestants. To this measure 
the Protestants seriously objected, as a deliberative body con- 
voked solely by the authority of the Pope, within his own 
territory and under his own direct influence, could only be con- 
sidered as an ex parte affair, by whose decisions they could 
not agree to be bound. As was to be expected, the decisions 
of the Council were such as the Protestants could not accept, 
and the Emperor, listening to the sanguinary counsels of the 
Pope, prepared to reduce them by force of arms. The first 
campaign was unfavorable to the Protestants and they were 
compelled by the Emperor to submit their case to the decision 
of a second Council to be held at Trent. But in consequence, 
it is said, of the prevalence of a plague in the place at the 
time appointed, the Council did not assemble. For the pur- 
pose of accommodating religious differences, and maintaining 
the peace, the Emperor ordered commissioners selected from 
both parties to draw up articles which should serve as a tem- 
porary rule of faith and form of worship until the Council 
could be assembled. These articles, drawn up in the year 
1548, which was the close of the second twelve year period, 
are known as the Articles of the Interim. They show a bala7ice 
of forces between the two parties at this point of time, and a 
relegation of the matters in religious controversy to the hands 
of the Secular Power. 

An important point gained by Luther and his colaborators 
during this period, was a concession of the reigning Pope, 
that many things in the church needed reform; and with this 
view he appointed four cardinals and three other persons emi- 
nent for learning, to consider what reforms were necessary, 
and to draw up a plan for effecting them. In 1546 the 
great reformer, Luther, died in peace at Eisleben, the place of 
his nativity. 



8o THE END OF THE AGES. 



THIRD PERIOD, 1548-1560. 

The articles of the Interwi which the Emperor Charles had 
caused to be drawn up in 1548, proved unsatisfactory to both 
parties, and Pope Julius III., who succeeded Paul III., con- 
sented, at the instance of the Emperor, to revive the Council 
of Trent for the purpose of settling all mooted questions. 
The Emperor had designs to take advantage of these 
religious disquietudes for the extension and confirma- 
tion of his power in Germany, to the detriment of the 
rights and resources of the Princes, while at the same 
time overthrowing the power of the Protestants. But while 
he was preparing to direct the current of events by the power 
of his army, Prince Maurice of Saxony led forth a well 
appointed army against him, and falling upon him unawares 
while at Inspruck, saved the Protestant cause from impending 
danger by compelling him to call a diet at Passau, and subse- 
quently one at Augsburg, for the purpose of deciding the 
questions which he had previously determined should belaid 
before the Council of Trent. The result of the Diet at Augs- 
burg in 1555 was the establishment of religiousliberty through- 
out the German Empire on the basis of which it has rested 
from that day to the present. One important point, however — 
the rights of Protestants in Catholic countries — was left un- 
decided and this unfortunately became the occasion of the 
thirty years war which desolated Germany during the forepart 
of the subsequent century. 

On the year 1556 the Emperor Charles V., who was also 
king of Spain under the title of Charles I., abdicated the 
throne, leaving his son Philip king of Spain and the Nether- 
lands, under the title of Philip II. On the year 1559, Philip 



THE END OF THE AGES. 01 

II., of Spain, conferred the administration of affairs in the 
Netherlands upon his sister Margaret of Parma, and Gran- 
vella, her minister. 

FOURTH PERIOD, 1560-1572. 

It cannot be regarded as otherwise than a remarkable fact, 
that in each and all of our cycles of history, whether small or 
great, the fourth of the seven sub-periods, — which falls in the 
middle of the scale, and exactly where the equation between 
the two extremes of the scale occurs, brings into view some 
developments of human society, or some distinct germs of a 
future development, which has in it something of the nature 
of an equation, equilibration or republicanization of the social 
elements that are prominently brought into play. While the 
old Roman Catholic re'gwie is unquestionably monarchical, im- 
perial and despotic in its affinities and tendencies, the Re- 
formed Religion which took its distinctive organic initiament 
about the year 1524, is as unquestionably republican in its spirit 
and tendencies. In this Fourth Period of the cycle under re- 
view, therefore, we might expect to witness such a segrega- 
tion of the new and the old forms as to define and contrast 
more plainly the distinctive characteristics and tendencies of 
both. That is what actually now happened, and in a very 
noticeable manner, as we shall see. 

In 1560, Granvella received orders from his master, Philip 
II., to establish that terrible tribunal, the Spanish Inquisition, 
in Holland, where the principles of the Reformation had taken 
deep root, and whither multitudes of dissentients from the 
Roman Church had fled from other countries in quest of re- 
ligious liberty. The horrors and cruelties of the Inquisition, 
which soon followed, provoked the resistance of the Hol- 

6 



82 THE END OF THE AGES. 

landers, and proved to be the germ of the future rebellion and 
republicanization of that country. In 1564, Philip, at the in- 
stance of the Catholics, who accused Granvella of a want of 
rigor in carrying out the work of the Inquisition, recalled him, 
and sent the duke of Alva to fill his place, with orders to be 
more strict in his dealings with the "heretics." Blood flowed 
freely, and thousands were sacrificed. The Hollanders were 
provoked to farther resistance, and finally to formal rebellion. 
In 1568 William I. of Orange took the field against Alva; but 
his supplies soon became exhausted and his army was com- 
pelled to disband. But the fires of rebellion thus kindled were 
not to be extinguished until they had accomplished their 
work, as we shall see farther on. 

The Church of England, which, as we have seen, had been 
severed from that of Rome by the act of Henry VIII., be- 
came crystallized in its present form by act of Parliament in 
1562. In its form and constitution it preserved many of the 
characteristics of the Roman Church, and on that account it 
was regarded by many persons, as not sufficiently radical in 
its deviations from the old ecclesiastical ?-eghne. These dis- 
sentients, who took the name of Puritans, separated from the 
established Church in 1566, and held conventicles, and estab- 
lished a system of ecclesiastical government of their own. In 
spirit and form, the English Church, which is Romanism half 
protestantized, so to speak, is in correspondence with, and 
was the progenitor of, the English political system, which may 
be described as Monarchy half republicanized. In spirit and 
form, Puritanism is in correspondence with, and is the pro- 
genitor of, the kind of republicanism which is exemplified in 
our present political government. 

Now let us observe the position of the date, 1566, when 
Puritanism first crystallized. It is exactly in the middle of the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 83 

Fourth Period of this Cycle and hence exactly in the middle of the 
Cycle itself. The middle period of the next cycle beyond, 
witnessed as we have already seen, the birth of the first 
political offspring of tbe Puritan Church in the Cromwellian 
Republic, which, though abortive or short lived, was never- 
theless sufficiently significant. 

FIFTH PERIOD, 1572-1584. 

The year beginning this Period was signalized by two not- 
able events — one violently reactionary, and the other in the 
line of forward progress. The first was that teriffic slaughter 
of the Protestants which commenced in Paris on the night of 
St. Bartholomew and spread through many portions of France 
during several days following, and the victims of which have 
been variously estimated as from 30,000 to 100,000. The 
second was the sending forth by William I., of one hundred 
and fifty armed vessels which, as privateers, were always suc- 
cessful against the Spanish. By the first, Protestantism was 
well nigh exterminated from France; by the second, its perma- 
nent foothold was finally assured in Holland, and the prelimin- 
ary steps for the founding of the Holland Republic were suc- 
cessfully taken. 

In 1575, William was made sovereign and chief commander 
over four united Netherland provinces — Holland — Utrecht — 
Guelders and Overyssel — soon after this, rebellion against Span- 
ish rule assumed an open and definite form. In 1579, the five 
northern provinces, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelders and 
Friesland, formed the compact known as the Union of Utrecht. 
In 1581 they were joined by Overyssel, and on the same year 
they formally renounced their allegiance to the king of Spain 
as a '•'■tyranf and proclaimed the Republic of the United Nether- 
lands, afterward known as Holla^id, from the superior extent, 



84 THE END OF THE AGES. 

population, wealth and influence of the province of that name. 
After much efficient service of his country against its 
Spanish oppressors, William was assassinated in his pal- 
ace on the loth of July, 1584, by a young Burgundian named 
Balthasar Gerard, who had insinuated himself into his confi- 
dence. He was rising from his table when the assassin fired 
a pistol containing three balls at him, inflicting a wound from 
which he immediately died. The murderer, on examination, 
confessed that he had been instigated to the deed by a Fran- 
ciscan monk of Tournai, and a Jesuit of Treves, being assured 
by them that it would secure his eternal happiness. With 
this tragedy closes the Fifth twelve year period of the Cycle. 

SIXTH PERIOD, 1584-1596. 

Notwithstanding the rejoicing which the news of the tragi- 
cal death of William is said to have caused at the Court of 
Spain, the event proved neither advantageous to the Spanish 
power nor disastrous to the Republic; for in Maurice, the son 
and successor of William, the Republicans had a military com- 
mander equal to the exigencies of their cause, and before 
whom their foes were gradually forced to give way. Though 
only seventeen years of age, and a student at Leyden when his 
father was assassinated, he was soon after elected prince and 
stadtholder, and subsequently displayed military talents which 
transcended all expectations. In 1586, he took Breda by sur- 
prise from the Spanish, and delivered Guelderland, Overyssel, 
Friesland and Groningen from their grasp. Commanding 
the forces of the Republic thereafter, both on land and sea, 
he was constantly victorious until the power of Spain was 
effectually broken. 

A cotemporaneous war between England and Spain, and even 
the casualties of the elements, causing shipwreck, aided in the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 85 

humiliation of Spain and the outworking of her final defeat. 
Queen Elizabeth of England, sympathizing with the Protestant 
cause, sent, at several critical periods," troops, under ex- 
perienced commanders, to co-operate with the Dutch patriots; 
and in 1588, the "Invincible Armada," boastingly so-called — a 
formidable fleet of one hundred and thirty vessels, sent out by 
Philip to invade England, was thrown into confusion and de- 
feated in detail by the English ships of war, and its fleeing 
remnants, caught in a storm, were driven and miserably 
wrecked on the western islands of Scotland and the coast of 
Ireland. 

This period, therefore, was one which witnessed the break- 
ing of the Spanish power in the United Netherlands and the es- 
tablishment of the autonomy of the Holland Republic, though 
the war itself, especially on the sea, was not yet concluded. 
As a Sixth Period, it conforms to the law of our correspond- 
ential scale, in bringing, in some sense, tht fruitage of the blos- 
soms of aspiration characterizing the immediately preceding 
or Fifth Period. 

SEVENTH PERIOD, 1596-1608. 

Although there does not appear to have been any very striking 
event occurring in the year 1596, to distinguish it either as the 
end of one dodecade or the beginning of another, this Period 
itself, taken as a whole, is sufificiently characteristic as a 
Seventh. It was a period of the ripening of the seeds of a pre- 
vious growth, which should serve as the germs of a new cycle 
of developments. Holland had, by this time, become the asy- 
lum for the persecuted of all nations, whither they repaired in 
great numbers for the enjoyment of religious liberty. In the 
quietude of their retirement they matured their thoughts, and 
prepared themselves for the part they were to take in the great 



86 THE END OF THE AGES. 

theatre of action that was soon to be opened to them for the 
development of new ideas, new institutions, and new eccles- 
iastical and political governments. Meanwhile, the population 
of Holland became so great that the people had to look beyond 
the sea for employment. Her manufactures and all branches 
of industry flourished exceedingly. Expert sailors multiplied; 
her commerce was extended upon every sea; her navy became 
powerful; her people became intelligent and wealthy, and in 
a short time the little Republic shone forth as one of the most 
brilliant lights of civilization upon the face of the earth. But 
as for Spain, what became of her ? Flaunting her gyves and 
racks and fagots in the face of the world, and cheered on- 
ward in her work of persecution by the plaudits of the Vatican, 
it must be admitted that her course was quite in another 
direction and led to a very different fate. Catholicism had 
lost her power to lead the nations and in her efforts to obstruct 
freedom of thought and independent progress met only with 
humiliation and defeat. 

How wonderfully confirmatory of our affirmed Law of the 
Cycle, that this great conflict between the medieval bigotry 
and progressive ideas should terminate at the time it did, as 
well as in the manner it did ! After much hard fighting, in 
which the Republic either held its own or acquired gains to 
compensate for its losses, Spain, no longer able 'to keep up the 
contest, agreed to open negotiations with the Republic as an 
independent state. A suspension of arms for this purpose accord- 
ingly took place in the year 1607. Conferences were im- 
mediately opened, and after numerous obstructions and delays, 
a truce of twelve years was concluded, through the mediation 
of England and France in 1609. This treaty secured to the 
United Provinces all the acquisitions they had made, 
together with an unlimited freedom of commerce on the same 



THE END OF THE AGES. 87 

footing with other nations, and the full enjoyment of those civil 
and religious liberties for which they had so gloriously 
struggled. 

The mean between the year 1607, when hostilities ceased and 
negotiations commenced, and 1609, when the treaty was con- 
cluded, was 1608 — the very year, as we have seen, of the first 
successful planting, on the James River, of the germ of the 
American Republic; the very year of the migration from Eng- 
land to Holland of the company of Puritans, who, twelve years 
after, in 1620, landed from the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock, 
and the very year of the commencement of America's First 
Colonial Cycle ! 

Let us pursue Spain one step farther: Philip III., the son 
and successor of Philip II. (who had died in 1598), at the 
instigation of the Inquisition and the advice of his minister, 
the duke of Lerma, issued an edict in 1609, ordering that all the 
Morescoes or descendants of the Moors should leave the king- 
dom within thirty days, under the penalty of death. The 
reason of this barbarous decree was, that though externally 
conformed to the rites of Christianity, they were still 
Mohammedans at heart, and that if left to remain, they might 
corrupt the true faith. The Morescoes immediately chose 
them a king and prepared for resistance; but being almost en- 
tirely unprovided with arms they were soon compelled to sub- 
mit, and were all banished from the kingdom in 161 1. 

By this violent measure Spain, already depopulated and im- 
poverished by long and bloody wars, inflicted upon herself the 
still farther loss of nearly a million industrious inhabitants, who 
had up to that time largely contributed to her resources. It 
is scarcely necessary to say that the lapse of the twelve years 
truce concluded in 1609, did not find her in condition to re- 
assert her claims to her seven lost Dutch Provinces. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Review of Methods and Summary of Results — Characteristics of the plan pur- 
sued; No human contrivance; An intelligent and divine plan; The Lo- 
gos or word of God — Human history as well as all things in nature, a 
garment of God. 



^1 TE have presented these results of the general inquiry in re- 
^ ■ gard to the Zaw of Cycles in History, a little out of the de- 
tailed order in which they stand in the series of actual historical 
occurrences. This has been done in following the order of suc- 
cession in which the different parts of the grand scheme were 
disclosed to the writer's mind, and for the purpose of showing 
still more distinctly the absence of all human contrivance in 
the construction of a mere theory. Most minds, in dividing 
history into regular periods, would have used the decennial and 
centennial methods, such as many historians actually have em- 
ployed, with a result showing a mere jumble of events in which 
no regular and discrete stages of historical evolution are visible. 
Others would have presented for divisions, the mere histories 
of dynasties, factions, and administrations, in which it is not 
pretended that there is any law of regular periodicity, or in- 
deed any other indications of a distinct and supernal //««. In 
either case, the mere contriver of a plan would have been likely 
to commence at the beginning, not the middle nor the end, say 
of the Christian Era or some other salient epoch, and trace 
events in the order of their continuity to some critical point of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 89 

modern time that would seem to conform to the ideal of a 
cycle. That, indeed, seemed to us the only method that prom- 
ised any desirable results, when we began our researches in 
this direction; but how we were balked at our first step has 
been already stated. And not only did our first conceptions 
of what might be, or ought to be, utterly fail us as a guide, but 
the initial discovery, which, as we have seen, led progressively 
to all the others, was one which seemingly thrust itself upon our 
attention at the time, not having been looked for as of the 
nature that it was, nor as lying at all in the direction in v/hich 
it was found. Instead, moreover, of looming up from the 
portions of the grand field of historical research where some 
index to the cyclic order of history was being sought, it ap- 
peared at the very end of history, and included a year or two 
yet to come. 

When the seven dodecades or twelve year periods of the 
history of the American Republic from 1776 to i860, stood 
out before the mind in such bold relief as not to be mistaken, 
at the same time exemplifying the law of processional and 
structural order which we had previously shown was every- 
where prevalent in nature, it became a matter of intense in- 
terest to test this rule in its farther application. And so to 
briefly recapitulate, going backward in time, we found two dis- 
tinct and complete cycles of the colonial history of America 
anterior to 1776, with the seven sub-periods of each, all in that 
perfect order of succession which conformed to pre-established 
law of the series. 

Then after much fruitless search in other directions for the 
discovery of the greater cycle, we considered these two cycles 
each of seven times twelve years, together with the one com- 
mencing at 1776 and ending at i860, as a triad dind thus as 
forming one; and thence, by multiplying the sujn of this triad, 



9° 



THE END OF THE AGES. 



which is 252 years, by 7, we obtained our longer cycle of 1764 
years from the beginning of the Christian era, with its seven 
divisions as set forth in previous pages, tested and proved by 
the actual facts of history in the order of their occurrence. 

But it was not until after this that we discovered that the 
third member of this hypothetical triad of cycles was in its 
nature, evidently not a third, but a fourth member of a series 
of seven; for in a societary series, third stages are monarchical 
and not republican. The only thing that might be considered 
as bearing the aspect of contrivance in this scheme, was the 
error of this false triad, which however, up to a certain point, 
served as the basis of correct reasoning and then gave way for 
the substitution of the true triad, embracing as its first term a 
cycle of 84 years anterior to the settlement on the James 
River, and commencing with the Declaration of Independence 
from Rome by Luther in 1524. And this makes the period of 
the history of our Republic from 1776 to i860, at which latter 
point the union of states was disturbed by secession, a Fourth 
cycle in a natural series of seven; agreeing with what has 
already been shown, that the fourth stage in the development 
of human society is naturally that of the Republic, such only 
being in analogy and correspondence with fourth stages in the 
development of every other natural series. Moreover it is 
evident that the first of these 84 year cycles is not a first in 
artificial arrangement, but dL first in its very nature. 

Here, then, we have the grand scheme of historical evolu- 
tions before us, embracing the greater cycle which closed in 
1764, and four smaller cycles of the history of modern civiliza- 
tion, beginning with the Declaration of Independence from 
Rome by Luther, and ending with secession from the American 
Union in i860. These latter may be summarily exhibited to 
the eye as follows: 



THE END OF THE AGES. 9I 

1 - • - - - • - - -- - - from 1524 to 1608 

2 - - - - --.- -, -" 160.8 to 1692 

3---------- i6q2 to 1776 

4 ------- - - " 1776 to i860 

Each of these must be considered as embracing' its seven 
twelve year divisions as illustrated by the facts of their re- 
spective developments before shown. 

Besides exhibiting several subordinate considerations in the 
cycle law, we have one more grand cycle — the cycle of the 
World — yet to ascertain, and which will appear in its proper 
place in a later chapter of this volume. 

Who can contemplate the wonderful order and regularity in 
the succession of these several serial periods without being im- 
pressed with the appearence of an Intelligent Plafi governmg 
the whole! Does not History, viewed in this light, appear as 
a growth as regular as the growth of a Tree or a Man, or any 
other living object whatsoever, and as governed by the same 
law, differing in the sensible forms of its application only as 
its subjects differ ? And what, O what ! is the pervading 
Power, Force, Life, and Wisdom, which impels humanity and 
all things in this same correspondential line of development ? 
Let us seek our answer in an old Book which even at this late 
day is too little understood: 

"In the beginning was the logos (Xoyos. inadequately translated 'Word') 
and the logos was with God and God was the logos .... All things were made 
by him [the logosj, and without him was not anything made that was made." 
(John I. 1-3). 

And I looked and lo in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in 
the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns 
and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." 
(Rev. V. 6.) 

And in Rev. XIX. 13, this same representative of the 



92 THE END OF THE AGES. 

^'•Seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth," is called 
6 Adyos Tov 6i.ov or "the logos of God." 

What more rational explanation of the septinary nature of 
all complete systems of things in the natural or even in the 
spiritual world, could be given than that which refers their 
origin and progressive development to this seven fold arch- 
etype in the Divine Mind called the '■'Logos,'' by which, as 
the indwelling, formative, generative and regenerative Life of 
things, "all things were made that were made" ? As it is not 
distinctively a theological work that we are now writing, we 
leave the reader to consider for himself the significance of the 
fact that this allegorical "Lamb with seven horns and seven 
eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the 
earth," was the only one that was found worthy to open the 
seven seals of the book of the future, and by such opening 
prophetically foreshadowing the successive evolutions of history 
to the end of the Grand Cycle, avum or aion, comprehended 
within the scope of that mystic "book." 

I confess to a sense of overpowering sublimity almost bor- 
dering on awe, when I contemplate the magnificence of a 
scheme which exhibits human history and all things in nature 
as the very garment of the indwelling Deity! 



CHAPTER VIII. 



TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY INCIDENTALLY DISCLOSED. 



History a jumble as now studied — Law of cycles' confirmed by other facts — 
Periodical movements in universal nature — From millionths of seconds to 
millions of years — Teaching history by chronological and cyclic charts. 



THOUGH the main object of our inquiries and calculations 
has been to ascertain our present latitude and longitude 
upon the sea of time, and in a general way to take our bearings 
for the future, we have incidentally attained a result respect- 
ing the philosophy of History, the importance of which is be- 
yond estimation. The ordinary mode of studying history is 
that of loading the memory with a confused succession of 
events, with no intelligible law governing their development, 
and hence with no index to their meaning, if indeed they have 
a meaning. The theory which seems tacitly to prevail is, that 
the development of nations and other human institutions is in 
straight or confusedly zigzag lines, ever reaching out aim- 
lessly into the darkness of the unknown and untried, and lead- 
ing into conditions which have no actual parallel in the past, 
or in the cotemporary institutions and experiences of other 
nations and climes. We read the description of some great 
battle in a former age, with feelings much akin to those with 
which the sporting man would watch the progress of a bull bait 
or a cock fight — to see which will be the winning party. We 



94 THE END OF THE AGES. 

read of the assassination of a monarch, the change of a dy- 
nasty, the revolution of an empire, the vicissitudes of hierachies, 
laws, customs, and the development of arts and sciences, and 
we often rise from the perusal with the question on our minds, 
"Well, what of it all ? What has it to do with us? and how 
much wiser and better are we made by knowing that these 
events and changes took place at the particular periods and in 
the particular countries to which they are assigned?" 

We would not, of course, intimate that these lessons, even 
thus confusedly read, are totally barren. They do, indeed, re- 
veal human passions, interests, prejudices, and caprices, and 
show how these act under given circumstances; but the great 
scientific value of these events, and how their meaning applies 
from age to age, and to different peoples, nationalities and 
social developments, is still involved in comparative obscurity, 
and is ever the subject of conflicting theories. 

The discovery of some coinmon law by which all historical 
evolutions are governed in order, harmony and correspond- 
ences, has long been a desideratum, a supply of which, it is 
hoped, will now be found in the pages of this work. Nothing 
can be simpler or more self-evident than a law by which his- 
tory proceeds in definitely periodical pulsations, and in regular 
series of these, forming cycles, circles or rings, small and 
great, each corresponding to the other in whole and in parts, 
and each, on its own specific plane, being the outworking of 
the interiorly vitalizing and moving Divine Idea or creative 
Logos as applied to that plane. The basic facts of, now well 
known, science, followed out in their irreversible principles and 
analogies, bear us out in this thought triumphantly, and that, 
too, through the widest conceivable range of their application. 
In the pulsations of the human heart, seventy in a minute, there 
is periodicity, and thence, as the first manifestation of life. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 95 

comes periodicity in the organic and functional operations of 
the system from infancy to old age and death. In the undu- 
lations of the luminiferous ether, four hundred and fifty-seven 
millions of millions in a second which are required to produce 
the red or lowest ray of the spectrum, there is periodicity, 
which diminishes to half of even that almost infinitesimal point 
of time in the vibrations that produce the ultra violet or octave 
ray. The pulsations of the air, producing musical sounds, are 
periodical — thirty-two in a second for the lowest C of the fin- 
ger-board of the piano-forte, thence reduplicating for the same 
given period for every octave above, and diminishing one-half 
for every octave below. The first octave below, sixteen pulsations 
in a second,nearlypassesout of the compass of the human ear, and 
is /t'// rather than heard — an organ pipe tuned to that pitch, shak- 
ing by its vibrations the whole building in which it is played. In 
the realms of inaudible music still below, we have eight pulsations 
to a second; as the next descending octave; thence four, thence 
two, thence one; and after a while, as we still farther descend, 
we may have one pulsation in a minute — an hour — a day — and 
thence, merging into the "music of the spheres" of which the 
inspired Pythagoras discoursed, we have one pulsation a year 
as marking the periodical swing of our earth in its orbit — one 
pulsation in eighty-fotir y&a.v?, SiS marking the orbitual revolution 
of the planet Uranus — one pulsation in eighteen million two 
hundred thousand years, which period, according to the math- 
ematical calculations of the Russian astronomer Maedler, is re- 
quired for our solar and siderial system with its whole family 
of innumerable suns and planets, to revolve once around the 
great central sun, Alcyone of the Pleiades. 

And so from infinite to infinitesimal time, we find the law of 
periodicity holds in reference to all the regular and divinely or- 
dered movements of creation; and every period of seriated 



g6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

movements, and there can be no period without these, must of 
necessity involve all the notes, degrees, triads and comple- 
mentary relations that are manifest in the musical scale and 
the colors of the rainbow. How can it be otherwise, even in 
the showings of deductive and a priori reasoning? Anything 
short of this would be unworthy of an Infinite, Omnipresent 
and All Wise Deity. Anything short of this would involve dis- 
order, disharmony and imperfection in the very plan of crea- 
tion and divine government. On what method of counter 
reasoning then, can anyone refuse to accept this very law of 
periodicity and cycles in its application to human history^ after 
considering all the inductive as well as deductive proofs of the 
same, which have been spread out through the preceding 
pages? 

But accepting this theory as the true one, a simple tabula- 
tion of the cycles in a series of chronological charts (such as 
those from which the author sometimes delivers lectures), and 
these charts hung up in the school room, may be made the 
means of imparting in a given length of time, a more correct 
and more easily remembered knowledge of the great anatomy 
of human history, of its great salient and ruling facts, and of 
its true spirit and philosophy, than can be imparted in seven 
times the same length of time by the ordinary methods of 
teaching. This remark is made on the basis of tests which 
we have to some extent actually applied.* 



* In due time we hope to be able to place our chronological and cyclic charts 
before the public. 



CHAPTER IX. 



CORROBORATIVE FACTS IN ANTERIOR HISTORY. 



History anterior to Christ; The three times fourteen generations of Matt. I. 
17; The number 42 a remarkable number; Its occurrence in Egyptian 
theology; 42 journeys of the Israelities; 42 phrenological faculties — 
These in pairs making 84; Square of 42 equals 1764 — The third of[that 
588, the number of years from Babylonish captivity to Christ — Curious 
divisors, quotients and numerical correlations. 



'THROUGH we have some marvelous facts concerning the 
-^ Grand Cycle of the World, reserved for statement in their 
proper place, and which will be found to connect with an old 
and still surviving empire of the East to which no distinct 
allusion is contained in the Bible, we can at present say but 
little of the application of this law of periodicity and cycles to 
that portion of the history of the world which is traversed by 
the Jewish Scriptures. It is indeed, not absolutely necessary 
to the specific purpose now in view, to inquire "How do these 
principles apply to the Mosaic, Noachian and antediluvian 
economies ? and yet there is a little cluster of curious facts 
that may be found to throw light upon at least one division of 
this question, while affording still farther corroboration, if 
that were necessary, of the scheme that has been set forth in 
preceding pages. 

In the first chapter of Matthew, 17th verse, the writer, after 
having traced the genealogy of Jesus Christ, remarks: "So all 

7 



98 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen genera- 
tions, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon 
are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into 
Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." 

Now here are three times fourteen, or three times twice 
seven generations, making forty-two generations in all. This 
number 42 (which is just one half of the cycle number 84,) is 
a product of 7 multiplied by 6; or of 12 multiplied by 3^. 
As composed of the latter factors, it probably, in longer or 
shorter proportional periods, involves the elements of the 
prophet Daniel's time, times and a dividing times, or three 
"times" and a half. 

This number 42 is a remarkable number. We first meet 
with it in the mystical religious teachings of the ancient 
Egyptians. It was taught in the "Book of the Dead," that in 
passing from this life to the Elysian fields every soul had to 
appear before the 42 Judges of the amenti or hades, whose 
office it was to inquire into its character and condition in 
reference to 42 species of sins or perversions of the moral 
nature, and 42 virtues that were necessary to be possessed. 

The path of the soul's progress toward the Elysian fields, 
paradise or heaven, was supposed to lead through three zones. 
The first of these comprised the earthly life; the second was 
the mid-region, where the soul was whirled around by con- 
flicting currents of wind, and sometimes driven back to earth 
again in order to expiate sins committed while in the body; 
and the third consisted of an atmosphere more calm and serene. 
I am not aware of any distinct statment on record which 
represents these 42 judges as being divided into three groups 
of 14 each, presiding over these three several stages of the 
soul's journey. But the Greeks, who seem to have derived 
their religious teachings mainly from the Egyptians, simplified 



THE END OF THE AGES. 99 

this judicial power of the hades (answering to the Egyptian 
amenti and the Latin infernus) and assigned the whole to a 
triad of judges — Minos, ^cus and Rhadamanthus,- — which 
might be considered as the equivalent of three personifications 
of the Egyptian 42 judges divided \vy\.o three groups of fourteen 
each. 

It is said that Moses was brought up in all the learning of 
the Egyptians. It is scarcely possible, therefore, to suppose 
that he was not perfectly familiar with this doctrine of the 
soul's moral journey to the Elysian fields or the promised land. 
It is to be remembered also that all the Christian fathers — 
indeed Christian teachers of all ages, with few exceptions — 
have considered the journey of the Israelites through the 
wilderness to the promised land, as typical of the moral jour- 
ney of the soul from the Egyptian darkness and bondage of 
the world, to the state of peace, light and heavenly felicity. 

Now let it be observed that the one whole journey of the 
Israelites from Egypt to the promised land was broken up 
into just forty-tzvo smaller journeys. These are enumerated in 
the XXXIII. Chapter of Numbers, where it is said that 
"Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys, 
by the cojiimandtfient of the Lord" (vs. 2) ; as though, from some 
occult or mystical meaning which they contained, it was a 
matter of special importance that these 42 journeys, in the 
order in which they occurred, should be put on record. 

Curious enough, if the modern doctrine of Phrenology may 
be credited, we may deduce from it the probable meaning of 
these forty-two journeys, both in their Egyptian and Israel- 
itish modes of presentation, which in principle are seemingly 
the same; and in which we shall find a natural basis on which 
the whole may be supposed to rest. The faculties now generally 
recognized as belonging to the Phrenological catalogue, are 41 



lOO THE END OF THE AGES. 

in number. If we add to these one highly important faculty, 
which man most certainly does possess, but the functional 
action of which cannot be located in any distinct portion of 
the brain to the exclusion of others, simply because it is a 
universal faculty — viz., that which conceives of the Infinite and 
Eternal — we have '^wsX. forty-tivo. But these exist in pairs each 
with a right and left, positive and negative, active and pas- 
sive, masculine and feminine, love and wisdom side, and 
counting them in pairs they amount to eighty-four in all, or 
seven times twelve, the number of an important cycle of time 
which we have already abundantly illustrated. 

If the cycles of human history are real, they must have a 
basis in human nature, as well as in the aggregate world with- 
out, and the regular recurrence of the astronomical cycles 
which govern all mundane things. Here we find that basis in 
Phrenology, as it may also be found in other divisions of psy- 
chological science. 

Now the forty-two journeys of the Israelites from Egypt to 
the promised land may be supposed to represent the metem- 
psychosis, resurrections, regenerations, spiritual generations, 
successively of each and all of the forty-two faculties, and 
thus the preparation of the man for the enjoyment of the 
celestial life typified by the promised land — the same as the 
passing before the forty-two judges, or rather judgmenls, was 
represented in the mystical teaching of the Egyptians as 
necessary to prepare the soul to pass into the Elysian fields. 
How the exact number forty-tivo was hit upon in those early 
days, we may not be able to determine, but it was probably 
the subject of revelation, as it is now a discovery of science. 

It is now to be remarked that collective humanity in the form 
of a tribe or nation, or of an association of tribes or nations 
under an ecclesiastical regime, is still only a 7nan in principle. 



THE END OF THE AGES. - lOI 

Consociation does not add any new element of human nature, 
but only intensifies, diversifies and averages the action of those 
elements that are found, in different modes of combination in 
each individual man. The very same principles and laws, 
therefore, which govern the journey of the soul through the 
three zones and forty-two judgments of the am enti to the Ely- 
sian fields, and the three times fourteen or forty-two trans- 
migrations in the one long journey from Egypt to the prom- 
ised land, must be supposed to govern the allegorical journeys 
of a nation or hierarchy from its first estate to its death and 
emergement into a higher degree of civilization and spirit- 
uality. So when the evangelist, as before quoted, tells us that 
"all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen 
generations; all the generations from David to the Babylonish 
captivity were fourteen generations, and all the generations 
from the Babylonish captivity to Christ were fourteen genera- 
tions," he is only repeatingon a broader plane and with a more 
extended application the anagogical history of the forty-two 
journeys from Egypt to the promised land, the pilgrim in the 
latter instance being the expanded Man, that is, the Nation. 

Applying these allegorized principles to time and consider- 
ing each journey a definite duration, we must endeavor to dis- 
cover some ratio between the cycle of an individual soul, and 
the greater cycle of multitudes of individuals, and successive 
generations of these, bound together and fraternizing under 
one grand spiritual Dispensation. It is admitted that this 
ratio might not always be a fixed one, differing, it might be, ac- 
cording to the amplitude of the developments designed to be 
wrought out under the Dispensation; but considering that 
identical human elements in each would under the larger cycle 
comprise combinations which might, in a sense, be termed 
complete, the hypothesis that the larger cycle may be the 



I02 THE END OF THE AGES. 

square of the smaller seems not an unnatural one. But the 
mind of the inquirer is scarcely prepared for its surprise on 
finding that the square of 42 is 1764 — precisely the longer 
cycle of the Christian Era as illustrated in previous pages! 

(42x42=1764-) 

Now dividing this period into three ti?nes fourteen generations 
of the same ratio of duration, we get 588 years for each, the 
culminating epochs being 588, 1176 and 1764. Moreover, it 
will be seen that this period of 588 years comprises 12 jubilees 
of 49 years each, and 7 of our American cycles of 84 years. 

Seeing that these hypothetical three times fourteen or forty- 
two generations of 588 years each coincide in so remarkable a 
manner with the cycle of the Christian era, let us next inquire 
if th.& facts of history are such as to prove that this same 
division of time was intended in the passage quoted. Matt. I. 
17, to be applied to the Jeivish Era. Now opening the Bible 
at the fifty-second chapter of Jeremiah, 30th verse, and con- 
sulting the marginal date at the same time, we find the sur- 
prising fact that it was exactly 588 years before Christ that 
Nebuchadnezzar finished the work of carrying the children of 
Israel away as captives to Babylon ! This period of 588 years 
therefore appears to be actually the length of the last of the 
three fourteen generations, from the Babylonish captivity to 
Christ, as comprising one-third of the square of 42. So 
striking and unexpected a coincidence can scarcely be sup- 
posed to have come by chance. And yet we are almost equally 
surprised to find that we can carry out the rule in its applica- 
tion to anterior Jewish history no farther, at least without re- 
vising the Usherian chronology of the Bible. The correctness 
of this chronology in its application to the more ancient 
periods of Jewish history has been disputed; but whether its 
rectification according to the true course of events would help 



THE END OF THE AGES. IO3 

US out of the difficulty, we are unable to say, and have no time 
at present to pursue the inquiry. 

As our deductions from the square of 42 are confessedly 
somewhat hypothetical, we deem it improper at present to 
offer them as anything more than corroborations of the main 
points in this doctrine of cycles, and as opening a line of 
thought in this direction which may be profitably pursued 
much farther by those who have leisure, ability and inclination 
for the work. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE SUMMIT OF THE AGES AND SURVEY THENCE OF CATHOLIC 
AND PROTESTANT CHRISTENDOM. 

Dominant Ideas; Religion supreme — Catholicism the supreme standard in the 
past— It has been preeminently the Church; Protestantism a transitional 
movement, rooted in, and rising out of the Catholic Cycle; Its sects so 
many roots of a new Tree; Protestant changes since 1764; Catholicism 
standing still; Seeking universal dominion; Reaching after worldly power; 
This consistent with her principles; Her movements to be watched; Her 
wonderful persistence explained; Swedenborg on Last Judgment; Her 
end or radical change in the near i\x\.w:&\ Another hint of this from the 
law of numbers — The number of recognized popes to 1764; The number 
of popes since 1764; Her day of grace 120 years, like that of the ante- 
diluvians; Spiritual republicanization will save her; Tendencies opposed 
to her present policy all powerful; Yet she defies them; Exalts faith over 
reason; Ecumenical Council of 1870; Declaration of Papal infallibility: 
Same day, France declares war against Germany — Withdrawal of troops 
from Rome; Napoleon III. a prisoner; Overthrow of Pope's temporal 
power; A terrible rebuke — Reflections; Peter and his "rock;" Truth 
mightier; Church's usefulness in the past; Obstructing truth, she becomes 
a power of evil; Then "come out from her my people" — The fairer struc- 
ture, and true Holy Catholic Church of the future; The upshot of the 
chapter. 

WE Stand now upon the summit of the ages, with some knowl- 
edge of the laws of periodicity in the successive waves 
by which the tide of human affairs has risen to its present 
height. These waves have been recognized as the pulsations 
of the heart of Deity who dwells in all things, and unceasingly 
works in the seven-fold harmonies of His Divine Logos, for 



THE END OF THE AGES. I05 

the highest possible good of His sentient universe. From 
this lofty culmination of the ages, and with all the elements of 
reasoning which continued practical use, through the preceding 
pages, has familiarized to our minds and commended to our 
confidence, we are now, in the present and following chapters, 
to consider some of the problems of our own day and take 
our bearing for the future. 

The lessons which came up from the great Past as here ex- 
hibited in comprehensive aspects, tend to impress more vividly 
upon our minds the self-evident truth, that human society in 
all its static and progressive conditions is proximately gov- 
erned, under God and his angels, by the dominant sentiments 
and ideas of its organized and leading minds, thence radiating 
among its masses. It is equally self-evident, and equally 
forcibly illustrated by these historical exemplifications, that of 
all the leading sentiments and ideas of humanity, those which 
come under the head of Religion stand supreme. No philoso- 
phy of merely material forces, however clearly presented or 
cogently argued, can either show that such forces, taken by 
themselves, have had anything more than a subordinate in- 
fluence in controlling the conditions and progress of the 
world, nor can they blot out the great fact that humanity has, 
from age to age, looked up to its common and acknowledged 
standards of religious faith and practice as the supreme law of 
conscience, of life, and of individual, social and political action. 
Nor can it be successfully denied, that, taking the ages of the 
Christian era in the concrete, the leading standard of faith 
and practice for all parts of Christendom except its oriental 
nations and those European nations which largely partake of 
oriental ingredients, has been furnished by that hierarchy 
known as the Roman Catholic Church. Though I do not 
acknowledge, and never have acknowledged, any allegiance to 



Io6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

that hierarchy, especially so far as its assumed power to bind 
my conscience is concerned, 1 am forced to make this conces- 
sion, in all candor. Nor have I any serious objection to the 
claims of those who insist that the Roman Catholic Church is, 
or rather was, par excellence, the Church. I will go farther and 
on the other hand unhesitatingly declare it as my opinion that 
Protestantism presents nothing which has any legitimate claims 
to be considered as the Church — the one and seamless garment 
of Christ. If its various sects may be considered as churches 
in the sense of religious congregations, they are not sufficiently 
"in the unity of the Spirit and the bonds of peace" to answer 
the idea of the Church in its aggregated unity. And yet Prot- 
estantism, or the Reformed Religion, has had its legitimate 
place in the line of human progress; and that place has been, 
as we have already seen, a highly important one inasmuch 
as the highest forms of existing civilization have been gener- 
ated under its influence. 

Protestantism, in fact, is simply a transitional movement. 
It is a conatus or endeavor towards the great religious Unity on 
a far higher plane, which, in the Divine government of the 
world, still lies in the great beyond. The seven seons of 252 
years each, discussed in previous pages, all belong to what is 
known as the Catholic Church; and with these its cycle of de- 
velopment appears to be co?nplete. The seventh ccon or age is like 
the seventh note of the musical scale, and merges by the me- 
dian overlapping of its natural ascending interval into an 
eighth, which is the first and key note of a new and higher 
octave. Or to place the correspondence in another depart- 
ment of nature, while its vital principle will remain exactly the 
same, the seventh age is the seed, the ultimate development of 
the old hierarchical Tree, which contains the germ or embrio 
of a 71CW Tree. It is known that the new plant or tree, for a 



THE END OF THE AGES. I07 

time after its germination, feeds entirely upon the substance of 
the old seed. Protestantism is really the germ, the foetus, the 
ante-natal state of the new form of Religion. It is not that 
which is to be, but the first blind and spontaneous endeavor 
towards that which is to be. Hence it has derived its nourish- 
ment from the Old Mother Church. It has taken its form, 
spirit and doctrines from the literature and traditions includ- 
ing the Bible itself, which were borne down to it through the 
channels of the Catholic Church. In the portion of this 
seventh note in the ecclesiastical gamut, then, whose natural 
ascending interval overlaps one-half of an eighth, which is the 
key note of a new octave, do we find the obscure promise and 
potency of a new development, but not the new development 
itself in its own specific form. This matured seed 
of the old religious Tree, planted in a soil warmed by 
the fervent aspirations of humanity for something higher, 
nobler and purer than the old Church in her senility 
could give, sprouted Lutherism, English Episcopalianism, 
Calvinism, Armenianism, Quakerism, Methodism, Universal- 
ism, etc., each of which contains germs of truth but neither of 
which contains a whole truth, unmixed with error. These are 
the radicles of the new plant, which, while still receiving their 
nourishment in a measure through the common umbilicus 
which connects them with the old seed, are sent down into 
the soil from which, on more mature development, they may, 
with the added influence of the upper air and sunlight of 
science, philosophy and the spiritual inspirations of the day, 
derive the means of independent and sanitary existence. The 
common plumule has scarcely yet appeared above the ground 
in such definite shape as to declare its species. 

The natural birth-time of the new plant, however, was at 
the natural death-time of the old, which according to the law 



Io8 THE END OF THE AGES, 

of the cycle heretofore explained and exemplified, fell upon 
the year 1764. It is a remarkable coincident fact, that just 
about that time the Protestant Religion, considered in its mere 
abstract capacity as Protestantism, lost its power to lead civili- 
zation and human society — just as Roman Catholicism had 
lost its power to do the same at the commencement of the 
Protestant period in 1524. The light of modern material 
science, the spiritualism of Swedenborg, the Universalism of 
Murray, and the Unitarianism of Priestly, then began to 
struggle into being, afterwards to take a leading part in the 
development of ideas and institutions. Notwithstanding its 
basic axiom as to the right of private judgment, and the free- 
dom of human thought within the limits of certain theological 
dogmas, it was not Protestantism so much as the boldness of 
emancipated secular and religious thought that produced the 
American Revolution. Partaking still of the old Mother 
Church from whose placental folds she had yet scarcely freed 
herself, Protestantism frowned upon every new form of scrip- 
tural exegesis, fulminated anathemas upon every departure 
from her recognized creeds, quoted scripture against the 
revelations of the earth's strata, denounced as damnable 
heresies the disclosures of Gall, Spurzheim and Mesmer; 
poured out streams of indignation upon the revealments of 
modern hierophants and prophets, and fulminated its execra- 
tions against the audacious postulates of Darwin, Tyndal, and 
Huxley; but with all this, Protestant divines, or the more in- 
telligent and sensible of them, have been gradually relaxing 
the rigor of their creeds and moving slowly along with the 
tide of scientific thought. They are wisely imitating an oft 
quoted example of Mohammed, and when finding that the 
mountain will not come to them, they go to the mountain. 
Thus the whole aspects of Protestant Orthodoxy have so 



THE END OF THE AGES. IO9 

changed during the last half century that a Rip Van Winkle 
of the church falling asleep fifty years ago, and awakening at 
this present day, would think that the whole Protestant world 
had suddenly and strangely fallen under the allurements of the 
old Serpent. The creeds born in the dim intellectual twilight 
of the sixteenth century, on which Protestantism was built, 
are now partially hidden under a gauzy veil of mysticism or 
kept out of sight altogether, lest their frightful features should 
cause a stampede among the flock. The old brimstone fires 
of a literal hell have gone out for want of fuel to feed them, 
and the horned and cloven-footed devil of the past centuries 
has taken rank with the mythical "Rawheadand Bloodybones, " 
concealed in the cellar or the haymow, with whom our grand- 
sires were wont to frighten unruly children. The reason why 
the Universalist denomination no longer increases in ratio of 
population is because its doctrines and spirit have been ab- 
sorbed into the Orthodox Churches, and the Ballous and 
Whittemores and Thomases of this day find but little in the 
old theology to battle and refute. The progress of change is 
still onward, and more rapid in its movements than ever, and 
under the increasing light of science and modern inspiration, 
who shall say how many of the old landmarks of Protestant 
Orthodoxy shall be found standing at the end of the next 
quarter of a century ? 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

But the Catholic Church: what has she been doing all this 
while ? Standing immovable as she enjoined Galileo to be- 
lieve that the earth stood, and commanding the sun, moon and 
stars of science to revolve round her as their only legitimate 
center. True, she has had a hard time of it so far as the great, 
promiscuous world of thought has been concerned, but within 



no THE END OF THE AGES. 

the sphere of her own faithful ones, she has been generally 
successful. She has been a strong tower of defence against 
political, social and intellectual innovations; and when no 
longer able to keep these at bay, but forced by a power stronger 
than herself to receive them into her own bosom, she has used 
all the devices of ingenuity to turn them to the advantage of 
her own spiritual and temporal power. Her tacit motto has 
been, "Let all things, including science, art, and the political 
governments of this world, be used for the glorification of the 
church and the extension of her power and dominion. To this 
end let there be no institutions for the education of the people 
which are not placed under the control of the Catholic priest- 
hood, and let there be no religious toleration except such as the 
uncontrollable powers of the outside world may render a dire 
and unavoidable necessity." 

The following paragraph quoted from a recent issue of The 
Tablet^ an accredited Roman Catholic journal published in the 
city of New York, partially illustrates the position of the 
Church in regard to these matters. 

When a nation is wholly Catholic, it is the most imperative of duties to keep 
them so, and to forbid the machinations of those who would try, by acting on 
the pride and weakness of the human heart, to seduce them from their allegiance 
to the faith which is to save their souls, and to introduce the curse of religious 
division. Is she a nation afflicted with rank sectarianism and religious division, 
then the same motive leads her to insist on the unbelief which leaves faith at 
the mercy of a supposed right of private judgment, to be consistent with itself, 
and to observe complete religious liberty; for she knows that then all men of 
"good will" will be won by the same beauty and consistency of the creed, the 
august solemnity of the worship of the Savior, and the sublimity of her moral 
teaching." 

Insist upon religious liberty whenever and wherever // al- 
ready exists beyond the power of the church to control or restraifi it [/), 
but "forbid" it, and "use every means" to prevent it whenever 



THE END OF THE AGES. Ill 

and wherever the Catholic power holds the national govern- 
ment — that seems to be the doctrine of this paragraph. Of 
its desire to regain control over the governments of Christen- 
dom, we believe the Catholic power makes no secret; and a 
few years ago the Paulite Fathers of New York city went so 
far as to calculate the precise year when this thing would be 
brought to pass in reference to the American nation. That, 
together with the course which the Catholic Church has taken 
and is now pursuing in respect to the public schools, has a 
meaning in which American freemen may be excused for tak- 
ing a little interest. 

Now in all these claims and aspirations the Roman Church 
is entirely consistent with her principles, held in all sincerity 
both by priesthood and laity. If her pontifical Head is really 
the vicegerent of Christ on earth, and if the preparation of 
souls, by the priesthood and by the formulas of the Church for 
an entrance of heaven in the next world, is really the infinitely 
important work that it is claimed to be, why must it not follow 
that all earthly concerns, whether governmental, social, or ed- 
ucational, should be held in strict subordination to the supe- 
rior authority of the Pope and his council of cardinals and 
bishops, and to the forms and ceremonies prescribed by the 
church as the indispensable means of salvation? If there be 
anything wrong in all this, that wrong must be sought not ne- 
cessarily in the perversity of the sacerdotal officials who now 
uphold and rule a church which they inherit from the past ages, 
who derive their very life-blood from her as their mother, and 
who, in general, are as sincere in their convictions as any other 
class of men in the world; but the difficulty must be sought in 
the fundamental principles of the church itself, and in the 
anachronism which it presents with the present age. 

With all her time-honored organic laws; canons and dogmas 



112 THE END OF THE AGES. 

which claim and receive the allegiance of her followers, and 
with all her assumptions of supreme authority in support of 
which, in the event of any great and threatening crisis, mil- 
lions would be willing to take up arms and battle to the death, 
the Roman hierarchy is with us yet. Among the institutions 
of the earth, she towers up in such overshadowing height as to 
attract universal attention. With her vast machinery of mon- 
asteries, convents, ecclesiastical schools and finance, all op- 
erating with clock-like regularity, and with her vast power of 
dogmatic authority by which she sways the minds and hearts 
of ignorant and superstitious masses, she is still working, in- 
dustriously as ever, for universal dominion. No secular gov- 
ernment can afford to ignore her presence, and no nation, not 
already under her yoke, can abstain from watching her move- 
ments with a jealous eye. 

How is this wonderful persistence of the old ecclesiasticism 
to be explained? We have seen that her time was up, and her 
natural cycle closed in 1764. Swedenborg, indeed, the great- 
est of modern seers as well as the greatest philosopher of his 
age, would probably have placed it seven years sooner, viz., in 
1757, the year on which he claimed to have witnessed the "last 
judgment" in the spiritual world, and the utter overthrow of 
"Babylon" in that world which, till that time, had by permis- 
sion, if not design, served as the counterpart and inspirer of 
the "Babylon" or Roman Church in this world. Naturally it 
might be supposed that the effect of this re-adjustment of the 
channels of spiritual influx to the Church on earth, would not 
sensibly take effect in this world until after the lapse of a few 
years, which might bring the end of the authorized visible 
church at the period we have mentioned. We have already 
seen that, in point of fact, mankind began about that period 
to think more freely on religious as well as secular subjects. 



THE END OF THE AGES. II3 

just as Swedenborg predicted they would. As a consequence 
of this increased freedom of thought, potentialized by the 
dawning inspirations of a new age, the initial developments 
in science soon began to appear, and which, in their farther 
progress, have illumined the last century as with sunlight, thus 
measurably unfolding the intellectual and moral elements of a 
new, universal, and hence real Catholic Church. It is the im- 
mense vis inertialoi the Roman Church, her ponderous monastic 
and other institutions, her vast worldly property, and her tower- 
ing Luciferian pride which it may almost be said "exalts its 
throne above the stars of God, and aspires to sit on the mount of 
the congregation on the sides of the north," that gave her the 
impetus to carry her down to this day with but little outward 
change, notwithstanding the adverse tendency of all the higher 
inspirations of the age. Besides it was a divine mercy to her 
that the change rendered inevitable by the course of the uni- 
versal progress of the outside world, should not come upon her 
too suddenly, but that she should have due warning and time 
to readjust herself to the changed conditions of the age. 

But that her end as a visible power, or at least the end of 
her old despotic regime, falls on these times, or in the nearly 
approaching future, is hinted in still another way, as we shall 
presently see. 

ANOTHER HINT FROM THE LAW OF NUMBERS. 

We will head this subdivision of our chapter with the follow- 
ing remarkable texts, which, in fact, might also appropriately 
stand at the head of several of our preceding chapters: 

Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight. 

Wisdom XI. 20. 

By measure hath he measured the times and by number hath he numbered 
the times; and he doth not move nor stir them until the said measure be ful- 
filled. 2 Esdras IV. 37. 

8 



114 THE END OF THE AGES. 

In the light of these quotations, we now call attention to 
another little cluster of curious facts connected with the law 
of ryhthuiic 07' niaiieral order ^ and embraced in the subject under 
consideration. First, however, in order that the point of ar- 
gument may be clearly apprehended for whatever of force it 
may be adjudged to possess, we will again remind the reader 
that th.e numbers 7, 12, and 3, are exponents of structural as 
well as cyclic harmony and completeness. Now, we have con- 
sidered the cyclic development of the Catholic Church accord- 
ing to the law of numbers and the verifications of historical 
facts, and shown that its completeness was in 1764. Let us 
now consider \\q.x structural development according to the same 
law, or at least order of numbers. 

A curious coincidence, to say the least, with this law of 
numeral order, occurs in the number of Popes, from the first to 
the last that are recognized by the Catholic Church. We say 
"recognized" by that Church, without starting any question 
as to the grounds of such recognition in any specific case, be- 
cause the recognition itself is the potent factor in constituting 
the theory, and hence that important part of the working men- 
tal force of the Church which consists in its theory. For 
example, there are grave doubts, especially in the minds of 
non-Catholics, even as to whether St. Peter ever was in Rome, 
to say nothing of the assumption that he was bishop or Pope 
of Rome during the twenty-five years which tradition allots to 
him ; but since this assumed fact has become practically ac- 
tualized by its admission among the materials of Catholic 
thought and speculation; we must consider it, at least as the 
ideal property of the Church, and thus an element in its spirit- 
ual constitution as actual as if the fact itself were proved be- 
yond doubt. 

In this view, then, let it be observed that the number of 



THE END OF THE AGES. II5 

Popes, from St. Peter to Leo XIII., according to the best 
authorized lists, appears to be 260, though it is fair to say that 
of the strict accuracy of this statement there appears 
to be some doubt, owing to commotions existing 
at different periods, and especially in the 14th century, 
during which several Popes were elected concerning whose 
legitimacy there are now disputes among ecclesiastical writers. 
Now the fact to which we would call special attention is, that 
the list which seems to be best authorized and is generally 
acknowledged, recognizes 260 in all, and makes Clement XIII., 
who was seated on the papal throne in the critical year 1764, 
the two hundred and fifty-second pope — this number 252, as it will 
be remembered, being one of our chief and most significant 
cyclic numbers. 

In connection with this fact, let us again direct our atten- 
tion to the period of 588 years. We noted in a previous chap- 
ter that this period is exactly one-third of the greater cycle of 
1764 years, the divisions running 588, 1176, 1764. We 
also showed the significance of these three divisions, consisting 
of 588 years each, in connection with the three times fourteen 
generations of Matt. I. 17; and noted the fact that in this 
period, 588, is comprised just seven of the sub-cycles of mod- 
ern history of 84 years each. Therefore, besides these three 
times 588 years being comprised in the larger cycle, and thus 
forming a trinity^ or a 07ie, with three divisions, a single one 
of these periods, comprising a septave of the smaller cycles of 
84 years, must also be counted as One and complete. 

Now notice the following singular and confirmatory com- 
bination of numbers: 

From the beginning to 588 there were 3X7X3 - =63 Popes 

From 58S to 11 76 there were 3X7X5 - =105 Popes 

From 1 1 76 to 1764 there were 7X12 - =84 Popes 

Total 252 



Il6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

That is to say, during the first of these periods, there were 
21 Popes, or three times seven, less than 84; and during the 
second there were 21, or three times seven more than 84; and 
during the third there were precisely 84 — the mean number 
thus being 84 for each period. 

84+84+84=252. 

Did all these numbers, together with the remarkable factors 
of the mifius and ////j- in the first and second periods, come by 
chance ? Or do they obey the law of numerical harmonics and 
proportions? If the former, then, indeed, is the coincidence a 
very remarkable one and the like of it would not probably 
occur once again in a million similar cases. If the latter, then 
is there not here a very strong indication, to say the least, of 
the structural completeness of a scientific Triad in the num- 
ber 252 or 3 times 84 Popes at the year 1764, even as there 
was also a cyclic completeness of the Church at that period? 
I see not how these facts can fail to have weight with candid 
minds, especially when taken in connection with numerous 
corroborative considerations, some of which have already 
been incidentally presented and others of which will follow 
hereafter. 

And now mark again; following Pope Clement XIII., who 
was seated upon the pontifical throne in 1764, there have been 
seven full papal reigns^ and that of the present incumbent, Leo 
XIII., is the eighth. The order of succession of those who 
completed their several reigns is, Clement XIV. ; Pius VI. ; 
Pius VII. ; Leo XII. ; Pius VIII. ; Gregory XIV. and Pius IX. 
Does this number seven naturally give hint of a supplementary 
completeness, or the completeness of the day of grace given to 
the Catholic Church after her normal time was really up, with 
the judgment mentioned by the Seer Swedenborg, as just ante- 



THE END OF THE AGES. II7 

dating the year 1764? Admitting this view of the case, it 
would seem that this '■'■day of grace'' covering the period of 
these supplementary popes, has its parallel in the terminal part 
of the history of the antediluvians, when it was said, "My 
spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh 
yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.'' This period 
of ten times twelve years was the period of the preparation of 
the symbolic Ark which was to serve as the connecting link 
between the old and the new age, atwu, or cycle, and it was 
also the period allowed the antediluvians to either repent and 
prepare themselves for the new age, or to fill up the measure 
of their iniquities, and become ripe for destruction. Supposing 
this same period of one hundred and twenty years to be now 
repeated, and for a similar purpose, it will close and the flood 
or cataclysm of destruction will either co7n7ne7ice about the year 
1884 or will be completed ^OMt that time.- 

REPUBLICANIZATION AND MENTAL FREEDOM WILL EXTEND THE 
church's TENURE OF LIFE. 

But this calamitous closing up of the career of the Catholic 
Church may be avoided on the simple condition that she will now 
be wise, and profit by the hint which seems to be contained in her 
structural Triad consisting of three times 84 or in all 252 popes 
up to the period indicated as the close of an old grand cycle, 
and the commencement of a new. The continuity of the 
Church beyond her third series of seven times twelve popes, 
that is beyond the year 1764, may be regarded as prohational 
for 2l fourth series — passing which, in safety, the whole grand 
series of seven times eighty-four popes from first to last might 
possibly be assured. 

Now we have already shown by numerous examples, that 



Il8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

fourth Stages in all seven fold series of developments (being in 
the middle of the scale of seven), are the equilibrating stages, 
and when applying to human society, they are characterized 
by equality, freedom and republicanism, in some distinctive 
form or representation. Especially was this fact exemplified in 
the lapse of the three times seven times twelve years, or three 
times eighty-four, that occurred between the years 1524, when 
the modern era commenced by Luther's Declaration of In- 
dependence of Rome, and the year 1776, which, by another 
''Declaration of Independence," witnessed at once the en- 
trance upon 3. fourth stage of social development, and the birth 
of the American Republic, recognizing the /;'i?<?(/w// and equal 
rights of mankind. We submit, therefore, that when Rome 
is shown that this is the FOURTH stage of her structural de- 
velopment on which she has now probationally entered, it 
would be wise in her to consider deeply what that means. If 
she cannot learn this fact from the law of rhythmic order and 
succession in historical developments, being unable to perceive 
the existence of such a law, she ought, at least, to be wise 
enough to see, that all the conditions of the human race at this 
time are absolutely changed from what they were at the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century, and so changed as to impera- 
tively demand that she shall adapt herself to them, and mod- 
ify her old time attitude upon the question of the freedom of 
the human mind to think and reason for itself, on theology as 
well as all other subjects. Failing to do this, she will inevit- 
ably find herself opposed by a power even greater than that by 
which she was opposed in the days of Luther, and to which she 
must ultimately and inevitably be compelled to succumb. 

But, judging from recent events in her history, it would 
seem that she is not sufficiently conscious of the nature and ex- 
tent of that power of free thought which is already sweeping 



THE END OF THE AGES. II9 

the best and most enlightened minds of the age entirely 
beyond the sphere of her attraction. She has essayed to restrain 
this tendency by the promulgation of her own authoritative 
dicta through ecclesiastical councils, and from the papal chair. 
Thus in her Vatican council of April 24th, 1870, she passed 
three canons on Faith and Reason in which the tormeris accorded 
an authority superior to the latter, and the free pursuit of 
science in conflict with the dogmas of faith, is anathematized. 
But the whole scientific world, reading this decision, tosses it 
carelessly aside, and goes onward in the free search for natural 
truth just as before — not, however, ignoring the claims of Faith, 
but using it as the servant of reason and knowledge, rather 
than its master. On the i8th of July of the same year, the 
great Ecumenical Council that was then in session in Rome, 
voted that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra in defini- 
tion of any article of faith, which must be believed by the 
church, he is infallible; and pronounced the usual anathema 
upon the dissentients from this dogma. But what results have 
been accomplished by that decision ? In the Church and even 
among the learned of the priestly orders, it has met with ill- 
concealed and in some cases even insurrectionary dissent; 
while among enlightened non-catholics, it has excited univer- 
sal contempt. No one believes in papal infallibility now who 
did not believe it before. The only effect of the promulgation 
of this decree, with its accompanying anathema on dissenters, 
has been to stir up a question in the decision of which intelli- 
gent people will and must unavoidably exercise their own rea- 
son; and when reason is exercised in determining the validity 
of an authority which claims to be superior to reason, the re- 
sult cannot be doubtful. 

And what benefit, even in a worldly sense, has this decree of 
infallibility brought to the Roman Pontiff ? Listen to the 



I20 THE END OF THE AGES. 

terribly significant answer as furnished by immediately ensuing 
and apparently providential events. On the very day of its 
proclamation Napoleon III. of France was impelled by some 
mysterious influence to declare war against Prussia, and by 
this declaration, all Germany was at once united under the anti- 
catholic Emperor William. Not many days after, Napoleon, 
under the pressure of imperative necessity, withdrew from 
Rome, the French troops which had been guarding the "holy 
father" and his temporal possessions. Two months still later, 
the "most Christian Emperor and eldest son of the (Church" 
was a prisoner in the hands of Germans, with his armies dis- 
comfited and scattered; and not many weeks thence still 
elapsed before King A/'ictor Emanuel marched his army into 
Rome, established the seat of his government in the eternal 
city, and overthrew forever the temporal power of the Pope, 
which had continued, with slight interruptions, from the year 
756 to that day! Could anything appear more like a judg- 
ment of God than these immediate sequences of the great 
Ecumenical Council of 1870! 

And now we must respectfully submit the following serious 
thoughts as covering the whole subject. Whatever maybe al- 
leged by interested and therefore unreliable interpreters of the 
scriptures, concerning Peter and his "rock," and of the same 
as supposed to be represented in the popedom, it is certain 
that Truth is older than Peter, and stronger and firmer than 
the "rock;" for it is the eternal framework of the thoughts of 
God, and the eternal archetype by which all things are made 
and divinely governed. We hold, therefore, that Truth, left 
to her free and unobstructed course, is omnipotent to take care 
of herself and has no need of "infallible" dogmatic interpret- 
ers, basing their claims on disputed passages of scripture, or of 
any interpreters outside of the laws of the rational mind. And 



THE END OF THE AGES. 121 

whoever shows himself unwilling to permit truth to fight her 
own battles against error and darkness, using only such weap- 
ons of sensible demonstration and mathematical and logical 
proof as she can create in the minds of her devoted followers, 
betrays either a lack of confidence in the power of truth itself, 
or a fear that if left free, these weapons may be turned against 
some favorite conceits of his own selfishly interested mind. 

It is not denied that there is a natural difference, and hence 
legitimate relation, between teachers and pupils, and thus that 
there is such a thing as authority on the part of an enlightened 
over an unenlightened mind. But this authority is but second- 
ary, and rests for its primary basis upon the truth which lies be- 
hind the teacher and which alone is infallible, and the true 
office of the teacher is simply to serve as a transparent and 
colorless lens to focalize the truth upon the relatively weak and 
vacant mind of the pupil, until the latter can see it for himself, 
and thus make it a part of his own mental nature. But if, on 
the other hand, the teacher strives to mould the mind of the 
pupil to his owti imperative dictum, whether personal or official, 
as the infallible authority, then, instead of a transparent lens 
he becomes simply an eclipse upon the light of truth, and casts 
the shadow of his own dark personality upon the mind of his 
pupil, presumably with the latent purpose of making the latter 
a mere appendix of himself or of some favorite institution, and 
not to help him forward to the estate of a noble independent 
manhood, standing in the image of God. Of which of these 
classes of teachers does the Catholic Church in her present 
state present the ideal and the model ? 

We may add, that the rational nature of man is most sacred 
as one of the principal attributes that distinguishes him from 
the brute and allies him to the Creator, and it is in no other 
way than by loading this with fetters and binding it with 



122 THE END OF THE AGES. 

"anathemas" and dogmas of "infallibility," that "great Bab- 
ylon" deals in '■'•slaves and souls of men.''' Rev. XVIII. 13. 

We call the reader to witness, that we are net opposing the 
Roman Catholic Church considered simply as such., but only 
those factitious assumptions unnecessarily perpetuated from the 
dark ages, and which are totally antagonistic to some of the 
higher demands of the present times. As she appears in the 
past centuries (barring her corruptions and her assumptions of 
infallibility), we have conceded her the position which she 
claimed for herself — that of the one ecumenical church of west- 
ern Christendom, saying nothing now of the Greek and Arme- 
nian church, each legitimate in its way, and for its time. She 
has had her counterpart, as we believe, in an invisible Church 
in the heavens, and has had her '■'communion with its saints," and 
under the inspiring and guardian influence of this superior 
power, she has crystallized, developed and performed her 
functions as best she could with the crude and barbarous ma- 
terials out of which she was composed during the ages suc- 
ceeding the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West. 
She has been useful in her time as no other church, organized 
out of the same barbarous materials, could have been useful 
during the 5-(7/;/^ time; and as a great spiritual Mother, she has 
given birth to a brilliant family of saints strewed all along the 
ages. We have simply been showing thdit her old cycle, with 
the life and spirit that animated it, is closed; that the dark ages 
3.re past, and that new and higher conditions of humanity now 
exist, the wants of which she is totally unable to meet without 
the most radical changes in her whole spirit and ecclesiastical 
policy. We have been showing that in proportion as she op- 
poses and obstructs these new and ?iormal developments in the 
intellectual and social world, and battles them with her "anath- 
emas" and dogmas of "infallibility," she opposes the laws of 



THE END OF THE AGES. I23 

divine providence, makes herself z. power of evil, and pursues 
the path which leads to her own destruction. With the su- 
perior guidance which has been vouchsafed to us, we have 
pointed out the way by which she may save herself, and be- 
come the light of the future ages, if she will. That way, we 
repeat, is by ceasing to be a spiritual despotism, and pro- 
claiming the largest freedom to religious thought — by becom- 
ing a spiritual Republic, and relying entirely upon the all- 
sufficient power of reason, conscience and evident truth, in her 
legitimate work of feeding, enlightening and purifying the 
souls of rational beings. I am impelled here to speak a truth 
concerning which I had thought to be silent for the present, 
and will humbly say that the angels are sensibly present with 
me, and it is from them that I have received the inspiration 
which enables me to write this book; and the message which 
they now breathe into my mind substantially is, "(9 Church of 
the ages, come up higher.'" And believe me or not as you will, a 
bright and queenly spirit, who is my most immediate guide, 
whose name you all know and love, and who, before her trag- 
ical departure from this world some three hundred years ago 
was a most devoted child of the church, now in behalf of her- 
self and of an innumerable host of bright ones of whom she is 
the mouth-piece, earnestly and affectionately beseeches you to 
'■'■come up higher." But if, notwithstanding all these providen- 
tial warnings which appeal to you in the world below, and all 
these entreaties from the heavens above, you still persist in 
your present course — buying, selling, making merchandise of 
the souls of men, committing acts of spiritual lewdness with 
the kings of the earth, thus unmistakably identifying yourself 
with the "great Babylon" of the Apocalypse — our last 
words must be to the many good men and women who 
are still in your fold, '■'■Come out of her my people, that ye 



124 THE END OF THE AGES. 

be not partakers of her sins^ and that ye receive not of her 
plagues.''' Rev. XVIII. 4. 

THE FAIRER STRUCTURE. 

But if the thousands and hundreds of thousands of sincere 
and well meaning people of the Roman Church are thus 
warned to flee from a prison house in which their rightful 
liberties are restrained, and from a dungeon which shuts out 
the sunlight of a progressive age, they are at the same time in- 
vited into a fairer and more beautiful structure which in the 
nature of things and the ordinary course of the divine govern- 
ment, must soon appear. We may not be able, at present, to 
trace with any degree of definiteness the details of this new 
and living structure; but these general characteristics it must 
certainly possess. It must be high as heaven, deep as hell, and 
broad as the universe. In its large Parental Heart it must 
carry all the children of humanity, and its capacious brain, 
glowing with the light of heaven, must comprehend all science 
and philosophy, whether material, psychological or spiritual. 
It must not only be able to harmonize the established facts of 
material science with its cardinal postulates of theology, but 
must know how to use them as irrefragable proofs of the same, 
while clearly tracing visible and material phenomena to 
invisible and spiritual causes. It must connect by log- 
ical and rational exegesis, the natural and spiritual worlds 
as soul and body are connected, and must serve as a 
ladder on which angels may ascend and descend upon the 
children of men. It must be a temple in which the spirit of 
God may dwell. It must be an outer embodiment of the 
Divine Logos in which are contained "all the treasures of wis- 
dom and knowledge." The aim of its teachings and ministra- 



THE END OF THE AGES. I25 

tions will not be simply to prepare men in this life for an en- 
trance of heaven in the next, but to prepare them to enter 
heaven here and now and ahvays. It must preach for salvation 
not merely a deliverance from an external hell, and an outer 
consociation with angels and good spirits in another world; 
but the living spirit of Christ within the heart and the whole- 
ness, soundness and divineness of the entire man must be rec- 
ognized as constituting the only true salvation. In its deep 
insight into the interior mysteries of spiritual and divine 
things, it will acknowledge and appropriate the good and the 
true in all the religious systems that ever have prevailed upon 
the earth, while in some respects towering high above them 
all; and its power of rational and moral conviction will be such 
as to commend it to the joyful acceptance of the better and 
more spiritual minds of all nations and kindreds and tongues 
and people, who in its great sympathizing and loving spirit 
will find the bonds of a vast and Universal Brotherhood. And 
this will be the true and Holy Catholic Church. 
The upshot then of this whole chapter is: 

1. That Protestantism in its present divided and indeci- 
sive state has no power to lead human society into its next 
orderly stage of evolution. 

2. That Catholicism, in its presetit spirit and strivings, can 
lead it only back again into a spiritual despotism not to be 
thought of for a moment. 

3. That we are, therefore, obliged to seek outside of both 
these, for the path that will lead humanity safely onward to the 
high destiny promised for it in the future, while taking due 
advantage of all the elements of progress brought to us by the 
Past and by both the Catholic and the Protestant Churches. 



CHAPTER XI. 

COINCIDENT CLOSING OF OUR NATIONAL CYCLE, AND OF THE 

CYCLE OF THE WORLD, DEMONSTRATED BY FACTS 

AND PERIODIC NUMBERS. 



Our latitude and longitude; Whither drifting? Other predictions from the 
law of cycles; Acquiescence in the results of the war, in 1872; Next 
Clymacteric period in 1884; Modified by conjunction of the Cycle of the 
world; A new aspect of the subject; The Race a Unit, and has its grand 
cycle; "Westward the tide of empire;" The circle now complete; The 
East and West united; Japanese ambassadors in i860 and 1872; Root and 
fruit of the Tree of Humanity; Infancy in Eastern Asia — maturity in 
America; Periodicity of the world's cycle, and wonderfully confirmatory 
numbers; Seeds of a new and universal civilization; Reform must come first; 
The approximal time of the great change; Prophetic symbolism of the old 
Pyramid. 



TTAVING thus worked up our dead reckoning, and, in 
^ ^ a general way, calculated our latitude and longitude upon 
the sea of time, we now proceed to consider the question. 
Whither are the winds and tides drifting us, and what, in 
the divine order of succession of events, may be expected in 
the near future ? 

Near the close of our second chapter, while speaking of the 
discovery in 1858-9, of the law of the twelve year periods as 
applicable to the history of our Republic, and the order of the 
succession of these in a series of seven, I mentioned that, on 



THE END OF THE AGES. I27 

( 

the ground of this law, which made the seventh twelve year 
period from our nation's birth, to end in i860, — I predicted 
that that terminal year would witness a change in our nation 
corresponding, in some way to a national death. I did not per- 
ceive what that national death would consist in and I ventured 
no conjectures on that question; but the prediction in point of 
fact was fulfilled in the virtual death of the national Union, 
in the secession of nearly all the slave-holding states, which 
commenced with the secession of South Carolina late in the 
year i860. In the same connection in which I spoke of this 
prediction I alluded to others I had made at the commence- 
ment of the war of the Rebellion, but stated that I would de- 
fer a specific mention of them for a subsequent page, when 
the basic position from which they were made should have been 
still farther fortified, and the significance of past and current 
facts of history should more distinctly and unmistakably 
appear. These general facts have now been set in order, and 
we perceive their flow and direction as that of a vast stream 
through many centuries; and from the past gradations, with 
the law of their succession now clearly outlined, the future 
may be calculated, though as yet only in a general way. 

One of the ulterior predictions made at the time referred to, 
was, that we would not find our way out of the difficulties in- 
cident to the rebellion, and witness the restoration of the two 
sections of the country to their normal relations, before the 
close of the next dodecade, in 1872 — and that the interim 
would be a repetition, on an ulterior scale or octave, of the 
first or revolutionary and chaotic period of our Republic, from 
1776 to 1788, during which we are without a fixed national 
Constitution, acquiesced in by all the states. Now this predic- 
tion was, in fact, fulfilled nearly as signally as the previous 
one culminating in the year i86o. After the forcible aboli- 



128 THE END OF THE AGES. 

tion of slavery as the fiat of the conquering party in the civil 
war, the national Constitution was by the act of Congress and 
the acquiescence of two thirds of the state legislatures, sup- 
plemented by two amendatory articles, securing the freedom 
and equal rights of the blacks (including right of suffrage), by 
organic law. From these amendments the southern states 
angrily dissented. They denounced them as being themselves 
unconstitutional, and threatened that in the event of a future 
triumph of the Democratic party in electing a President and a 
majority in both Houses of Congress, they would declare them 
null and inoperative. This continued to be the temper of the 
former slave states up to the year 1872, but on that year there 
was a split in the Republican Party in respect to the policy of 
President Grant towards the Southern States. The dissentients 
organized under the title of the ''Liberal Republicans," held a 
convention at Cincinnati, drew up a platform pledging itself 
to a liberal policy in respect to the Southern States, and nom- 
inated Horace Greely for the Presidency. Soon afterwards 
the Democrats held a Convention at Baltimore, adopted a plat- 
form declaring submission to the results of the war, accepted 
the amendments to the Constitution in respect to the equal 
rights of the negro population, adopted the Cincinnati Plat- 
form and nominations, and fused itself with the Liberal Re- 
publican Party. In these acts of the Convention the whole 
South acquiesced and in their acquiescence actually committed 
themselves to a compliance with their provisions, and the nor- 
mal relations of the two sections of the country were thus 
ostensibly restored under one recognized organic law, after a 
state of actual or suppressed rebellion running through twelve 
years. 

Although Mr. Greely was not elected, and the Cincinnati 
Platform did not prevail, could there have then been such a 



THE END OF THE AGES. I29 

wise reconstruction of the organic laws and machinery of the 
government as would have been suited to the changed con- 
dition of the times, and especially as affecting the right of 
suffrage, the pledges then given by the Southern people would 
probably have been carried out. But as no such change was 
proposed, or even thought of, the previous imperfect work- 
ings of our political machinery were aggravated by the intro- 
duction of new elements of disorder in the constituency of the 
government, and the white people of several of the Southern 
States again arrayed themselves in opposition to the laws of 
the United States, carrying elections by violence, terrorism 
and fraud, and bidding defiance to the federal courts with a 
majority in both houses of Congress (from March 4, 1879) of 
the political party which has heretofore always been in sym- 
pathy with them ! Whether the violent revolution which these 
and other signs portend, can be averted or not, will depend 
upon the prompt and speedy action of our people in a direction 
heretofore unthought of, and concerning which we shall speak 
at length in a more advanced portion of this volume. 

According to the same law of twelve year periodic evolu- 
tions, the next climacteric point will be passed in the year 
1884, immediately after which we ought to start on the trial 
period of a newly organized system of politics. But before we de- 
finitely forecast the changes which that period may be ex- 
pected to bring, we must take account of the fact that, by the 
vast progress and diffusion of ideas, inventions and discoveries 
since the year 1764, and especially by the introduction of the 
magnetic telegraph (an American invention, by the way), our 
nation has drifted into the general current of the cyclic prog- 
ress of the world and we must consider the modifying in- 
fluence which this fact is likely to have upon the developments 
and destiny of America. 

9 



130 THE END OF THE AGES. 

COMPLETION OF THE WORLD's CYCLE OF CIVILIZATION. 

And here is presented a new aspect of the subject, which 
we shall consider in a two-fold light: First, that of the longi- 
tudinal progress of civilization and the completion of its circle 
round the globe; and Second, that of its cyclic periodicity as 
expressed in harmonic numbers. 

From its origin to the present moment, the human race must 
be considered as a Grand Unit^ or in principle, otie Grand Maji. 
The nations, with the distinctive mental and moral character- 
istics of their people and the peculiarities of their respective 
civilizations, laws and customs, represent the organs of that 
grand man, with their functioning processes. Each isolated 
and fragmental development is a part of the whole, and the 
whole includes and dominates each. And so, the race must 
necessarily continue to be, throughout the illimitable future, 
notwithstanding the innumerable differentiations and complex- 
ities it has unfolded and may yet unfold and multiply to in- 
finity. 

Now this Grand Man has its birth, its infancy, its adoles- 
cence, its physical and reproductive maturity, its old age, de- 
cline, death and resurrection to a new life, in exact corre- 
spondence to the successive developments of manhood in its 
least segregated form. There is therefore, necessarily, a 
grand cycle for the race as a whole, as well as for nations and 
individuals — including the periods of infancy, youth, physical 
maturity, ripeness, old age, decline, death and renaissance. 
To what part of this line of successive steps has the human 
race^ as such, now arrived ? AVe shall see. 

The dim glimpses which the most ancient history opens into 
the still remote past, seem to locate the primeval stock from 
which the existing civilized nations have sprung, in central or 



THE END OF THE AGES. I3I 

eastern Asia. Thence as governments matured, stagnated, 
and degenerated into tyrannies of selfish personal rule, indi- 
viduals, communities and tribes, composed of the freest, no- 
blest and most intelligent minds, would migrate in search of 
greater freedom and room for larger expansion than could be 
attained under the old institutions. Though there was in 
some remote period of antiquity, a limited flow of tribes east- 
ward^ which formed the materials out of which the Japanese 
empire was subsequently crystallized, the main currents of mi- 
gration were westward, if for no other reason, because the 
room in that direction was without known boundaries. These 
migratory bands would found colonies, build cities, and form 
the nuclei of future nations, generally with a higher civili- 
zation, a farther unfoldment of the arts and sciences, and a 
greater freedom of thought and action than were possible un- 
der the old regime. And so, in turn, when these secondary 
institutions matured, stagnated and became restrictive beyond 
the endurance of their noblest citizens and subjects, multi- 
tudes of these latter would again migrate westward, and in 
like manner establish still higher civic and national institu- 
tions. And thus the "tide of empire" has been advancing west- 
ward — westward — still westward, through all the succeeding 
centuries, until it has just now cropped out on the Pacific 
shores of America. 

TYiO. periodicity of this western outcrop, in its several waves, 
is worthy of notice. In the year 1848 (the end of the sixth 
and the beginning of the seventh dodecade of the history of our 
Republic, as shown in a previous chapter), the United States, 
as a result of the Mexican war, gained possession of New Mex- 
ico, Arizona and California — thus planting her banner on the 
Pacific shores, and completing the circle of civilization arou?id the 
globe. Twelve years more elapsed when, in i860, voices were 



132 THE END OF THE AGES. 

heard from the still remote West, speaking to America,, 
which had then become to it the East and source of light; a 
sail was seen floating over the waves of the Pacific; it ap- 
proached, and lo, a multitude of persons in strange costume 
landed upon the shores of California! It was an embassage of 
princes and their retinues, to the number of seventy-two in 
all, sent out by the imperial government of old Japan, to form 
a treaty of friendship and commerce with the great Republic 
of the new world! One of the oldest of the family of nations 
is thus seen in fraternal embrace with the youngest! It is 
again worthy of notice, that when another twelve year period 
had elapsed, viz., in 1872, this phenomenon was repeated in 
another Embassy from Japan, consisting of forty-nine persons. 

(7X7 = 49)- 

Thus we see that the Root of the Tree of Humanity — Hu- 
manity in its infantile stage — is represented by the Mongolian 
nations of the far East. The topmost branches, covered with 
ripening but not yet ripened fruit, are spread over the broad 
land in which it is our good fortune to dwell, extending now to 
its extreme boundaries, whilst the perfume of its blossoms is 
caught by the trade winds of the Pacific, and wafted to the old 
Orient from which all sprang. The cii'de or cycle of the world is 
complete. The "tide of empire" can no longer "hold its west- 
ward way" without trenching upon the old Mongolian nations 
of Eastern Asia. Beginnings and endings are linked together, 
and much farther progress is impossible without a Neiu Be- 
ginning. 

In America, Humanity, after passing through all its succes- 
sive Asiatic and European stages of growth, is found in the 
highest degree of development. It is scarcely possible for a 
man born in a foreign clime, and reared under the effete in- 
stitutions of the old world, to set his foot upon these shores, and 



THE END OF THE AGES. I 33 

inhale the breezes that sweep over this grand, broad, free con- 
tinent, without feeling that he is more of a man than he ever 
was before While we honor the German for his profound 
scholarship, the Frenchman for the versatility of his genius, 
and the Englishman for his vigor and breadth of thought, we 
must yet be permitted to say, that in no country in the world 
is there so much invention, so much original, free and manly 
thought, as in America — notwithstanding the clouds we are 
now under in consequence of the corruption of our political 
and social institutions. Go back towards the East, and the 
farther you go, the less inventive and originative do the people 
become, until you come to China, where they neither invent 
nor originate anything, but, when not bound by customs or 
arbitrary laws, are capable of imitatitig everything. 

Thus the gradations of human genius, talent and institu- 
tions, between the oriental and occidental extremes of the line 
of development, now united, furnish all the elements of a com- 
posite completeness — confirm the fact of an entire cyclic evo- 
lution of the human world, and show that the period of a fiew 
departure for the whole race, cannot possibly be far distant. 

PERIODICITY AND HARMONIC NUMBERS IN THE WORLD'S CYCLE. 

And now mark the startling facts which prove that this 
grand cycle of progress is also a circle or what means the same, 
a cycle of tiitie. We have already remarked that, at some un- 
known period in remote antiquity, there appears to have 
been, from the center of population on the Asiatic continent, 
a limited migratory tendency eastzaard, which furnished the 
elements that afterwards crystallized into the Japanese 
Empire. Now leaving out the mythological stories of Jap- 
anese antiquity, the first authentic traditions that have come 



134 THE END OF THE AGES. 

down to US represent that nation as being in a state of barbar- 
ism, in which the inhabitants of each separate village was 
ruled by a head man. Such was the condition when Jimmu 
Tenno commenced the conquest of the whole island of Niphon, 
in the year 667 B. C. Having at the end of the next seven 
years completed his work of subjugation, he set up his imperial 
court at Kioto in the year 660 B. C, exercising, as did his suc- 
cessors, both spiritual and temporal power. There were still 
anterior eras of the world, but with those at present we have 
nothing to do. 

It is at the year 660 before Christ, therefore, being the year 
the empire was founded that the Japanese begin their era; and 
from that period their history seems to be authentic. Now let 
it be borne in mind, that Japan formed the extreme eastern 
link of the chain of civilization, to unite finally with the ex- 
treme western link formed by America, in completing the 
circle around the globe. We therefore find the commeficement 
of the circle in time (or the cycle) at 660 B. C, when the em- 
pire was founded, and its close in i860, when the two ends 
were united by the establishment of free intercourse between 
the two nations, and when preliminary steps were taken to 
open Japan to the commerce of the world. The period of the 
Cycle of the world, therefore, according to this view, was from 
660 before Christ, to i860 after Christ, or 2520 years. 

Let us look a little farther. We have already found, by an 
independent process, the very remarkable aeon of 252 years, 
and shown by the actual facts of history, that there are just 
seven of these reons, each distinct and well-defined, in the 
Christian ecclesiasticism which, as to its spiritual sanctions, 
was consummated in 1764, when the dawn of the era of mod- 
ern ideas commenced. Now behold, reader, how these aeons 
of 252 years work, without fractional remainder into this 



THE END OF THE AGES. I35 

whole period of 2520 years, and that there are exactly ten of 
them, no more, nor less! What rational mind will suppose 
that this is a mere coincidence, or that it would have been at 
all likely to occur unless there had been a law governing the 
case, seeing that there were so many hundred chances against 
it to one in its favor ? Or if any one should, after all, be so 
unreasonable as to insist that this is a mere coincidence, let 
him account for the coincideuce of coincidences, involving a thou- 
sand fold greater improbabilities, — that the end of this period 
of 10 times 252 years fell exactly tipon the year i860 as the end 
of the 84 year cycle of the crude republic of America — this 
being also the year predicted by the present writer, from the 
indications of the law previously discovered, as one which 
would witness some change in the republic that would corre- 
spond to a national death — subsequently fulfilled in the death of 
the union by secession! 

Once more: The Japanese have a popularly recognized 
smaller cycle of 60 years. We know not to a certainty on 
what foundation this cycle is based, farther than that it is one 
also recognized by the Chinese and is the multiple of 12 by 5 
or 10 by 6. Each of these factors has, as might be shown, a 
correspondential significance when applied to human nature 
and its evolutions. The period of 60 years also is the tenth 
part of the anciently recognized cycle of the Neros, of 600 
years, and may be a part of that original conception. But we 
cannot stop to discuss these matters now. We are concerned 
with the cycle of 60 years, pure and simple; and when we 
divide this into the whole period of 2520 years we bring out, 
again that remarkable number 42, which has appeared in pre- 
vious pages woven all through Egyptian lore; as the number of 
the faculties ascribed to the human mind by phrenology; as 
the number of journeys of the Israelites from Egypt to the 



136 THE END OF THE AGES. 

promised land; as the number of generations from Abraham to 
Christ, and as the square root of the number 1764 years com- 
prising the Christian dispensation. Who will now say that the 
world is governed by chance, and that there is no God ? * 

Look at this amazing series of arithmetical facts, reader, — 
look at it in the light of all we have written on the Law of 
Cycles in Jiistory^ — and ask yourself, what can it mean, if not that 
we are at the End of the Ages — the end of the old world, and 
in fact, the commencement of the new, in which the crisis of 
external and universally visible change must be near at hand ? 

Since the year i860, the progress of the Japanese in the arts, 
sciences and civilization has been without parallel in the his- 
tory of any other nation for an equal period of time; and the 
7)iundane part of the inspiration which has carried them for- 
ward has been derived principally from America. And in this 
closing up of the old cycle of the world and the opening of the 
new — hi this ripening stage of the past, and this dawning of a 
new era for the whole race, we feel prepared to say that to 
America, the last and highest form of national evolutions — 
to America belongs the capacity and evident duty of planting 
the whole world with the seeds of a New Civilization. In this 



"•'"It was not until after the above was written tliat I discovered, what I do 
not recollect to have noticed before, the following note written on the fly leaf 
of a book entitled " The End as foretold by Daniel," presented to me by the 
author, my friend Mr. Redford A. Watkinson, a New York lawyer — dated 
Feb., 1 866. I give it for wliat it may seem to be worth as a confirmation, from 
another point of view, of this cycle of 2520 years. 

Dear Sir; — The cycles about which you and I used to talk, are made thus; 
In the precession of the equinoxes, the point goes westward 1° in 72 years. 

To go through a sign of the zodiac, 30° requires 72X30=2160, or 6 days 
of 360. This is a work day period. To make it sabbatic, add a day, and it is 
7 days of 360 or 2520 — double 1260, the great cycle from judgment to judg- 
ment. R. A, W. 



THE END OF THE AGES. I37 

great work, our brothers of the Anglo-Saxon race, whose 
homes are in the British Isle, in the Canadas, in India, in 
Australia, and in the isles of the sea, will be our co-laborers; 
and the cross of St. George and The Stars and Stripes will 
march forward side by side to moral and intellectual conquest 
of the whole earth, for it is the will of God that Light and 
Freedom shall swallow up Darkness and Despotism. 

But before we can hope for the crown of success in these 
grand achievements, we must greatly improve our own civiliza- 
tion. We must rid ourselves of our remaining barbarisms, our 
political corruptions, our social injustices, and our effete and 
moribund customs and institutions, — useful only in an age far 
less advanced than the present; and if we are unwilling to 
purge ourselves from these, preparatory to entering upon the 
next grand work before us, I believe that God himself will 
purge us as by fire. But on these matters more hereafter. 

The changes which we are led to suppose will prepare the 
American nation and people to enter upon this great work, 
have already been indexed by the law of twelve year waves, 
as being destined to occur not later than the year 1884; from 
which period we ought to start with an essentially new system 
of political machinery. Though the confluence of smaller 
cycles and periods into the terminal epoch of the Grand Cycle 
of the World, may disturb somewhat our calculations, there is 
not wanting th.Q prophetic evidence, if such evidence were here 
specially required, of some great change, affecting not only 
America but the world, that may be expected even a little 
sooner than the year 1884. Even in the dim ages of antiquity 
the divine laws of evolution, by which the serial and cyclic or- 
der of future developments in the human world were predeter- 
mined, were in a general way disclosed, by inspiration, to a 
limited number of minds that were prepared to receive the 



138 THE END OF THE AGES. 

information; and these have bequeathed their impressions and 
deductions in the forms of monumental symbols and prophetic 
writings. 

Of the first of these forms of prophetic foreshadowing, we 
may here refer to the grand old pyramid of Cheops^ the oldest 
and largest of the pyramids of Egypt, whose wonderful 
mathematical symbolisms have recently been interpreted by 
John Taylor, Piazzi Smyth and others, and which, among 
many other things, seems to indicate with approximate exact- 
ness the time of the End of the Ages. Built by a power for- 
eign to, and hated and feared by the Egyptians, on a site care- 
fully selected as the center of the land surface of the earth; 
on a parallel of latitude, accurate apparently to a rod, which 
would bring the aspect of certain significant heavenly bodies 
within a required angle of observation with the pole star; with 
mathematical correlations and commensurabilities totally ab- 
sent from all the other Egyptian pyramids; typifying the num- 
ber of days in the year; showing the size and weight of the 
earth and its mean distance from the sun more correctly than 
the same have been ascertained by modern science until quite 
recently, and upon the basis of the units furnished by these 
data, exemplifying a complete system of weights and meas- 
ures, more accurate than the French metric system; — pointing 
by its elongated galleries, to the then pole star, and to Alcy- 
one of the Pleiades, which at the epoch of its erection were 
crossing the meridian at opposite quarters of the heavens at the 
same moment, once every twenty-four hours — this structure, a 
representative counterpart of the holy Mount Meru on the 
"sides of the north" (the spiritual "zion" of Hebrew theosophy) 
and a microcosm of heaven, earth and the under world, and 
whose divine mysteries mathematically recorded apparently by 
a divinely inspired architect, were carefully sealed up until the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 139 

latter day intelligence of mankind might understand and ap- 
preciate them — this grand old pile of masonry, a Bible in 
itself, constructed long before a word of our Bible was written, 
now speaks forth words of pregnant and startling import to the 
minds of those who can understand and appreciate them. And 
among its records is one, in a long and wonderfully symbolical 
gallery, in which so many pyramid inches typify so many years, 
which points with ominous significance to the year 1881-2 of our 
common era as the actual and worldly terminus of some grand and 
comprehensive order of things which seemingly can be none 
other than the order of things that no7v is. * 

Beyond this long gallery, ascending at an angle of a little 
over 26°, the remaining portion of the passage becomes 
horizontal, and Piazzi Smyth finds in it no certain index of 
ti7?ie to be consumed in the typified subsequent progress 
through a period of tribulation and humiliation.^ in which a 
weighing process {niorally weighing ?) seems to be concerned, 
lasting between forty and fifty years, and terminating in a 
period of universal justice — such being the plain import of the 
symbolism contained in the so called "king's chamber" in the 
heart of the pyramid. Here, then, is one index finger point- 
ing ominously to the years 1881-2 — let us see what light is shed 
on the same theme from other and independent sources. 



* See "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," by Piazzi Smyth, Astrono- 
mer Royal of Scotland — giving, in addition to what had been known before, 
the results of personal observations and measurements of the Great Pyramid, 
made during five months of the year 1865. 



CHAn ER XII. 

BIBLE PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE TIME OF THE END. 

Prophetic numbers in Daniel and the Apocalypse; The "abomination of desola- 
tion;" The "daily sacrifice;" The "holy place;" The Temple — (with mean- 
ings)— The "princes of the Gentiles" and worldly rule contrasted with the 
"Kingdom not of this world;" When was the "abomination of desolation" 
set up? — Pope Pelagius IT claims supreme dignity; Gregory the Great, and 
Boniface II T renew the claim — The tyrant Phocas confirms; "Antichrist, 
the man of sin;" Invisible government of the church not extinct; The two 
witnesses; Even the secularized papacy overruled for good; Beginning 
and close of the numbers and periods; Appro.ximate agreement with the 
old pyramid inde.x:. 

^1 /"E have no inclination at present to occupy much space in 
* * prophesying from the prophecies, especially in view of the 
failures of our predecessors in this line of secondary vaticina- 
tion; yet the reader will pardon us if we briefly point to a few 
sayings and facts which seem, not only in remarkable coinci- 
dence with these intimations of the old pyramid, but which 
have a significance of their own so peculiar and striking as to 
merit careful attention in this place. 

In the 1 2th or last chapter of the book of Daniel, there are 
prophetic allusions to the "time of the end." As one of the 
signs that should precede the "end," it was said that "many 
shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased." It 
may be remarked in passing, that there has never been such a 
"running to and fro" and such an "increase of knowledge," 
in the same length of time as during the last hundred years, 
and especially the last half of that period, and it may be 



THE END OF THE AGES. 141 

questioned whether this sign of the approaching end is likely 
to be ever more signally manifested in any future period of the 
sameduration. When Daniel inquired, "What shallbe the end of 
these wonders?" he heard an angel proclaiming the answer, 
that it should be "for a time, times and a half; and when he 
shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy 
people, all these things shall be finished." 

What can be understood by the accomplishing or finishing 
"to scatter the power of the holy people," unless it be the 
complete vastation or death of a church, preparatory to the in- 
troduction of a new church or spiritual dispensation ? The 
"time, times and a half" which was to precede this consumma- 
tion, has by common consent of interpreters been considered as 
literally synonymous with three and a half Jewish years of 360 
days each, with five understood but unmentioned inter-calary 
days, prophetically typifying 3}^ times 360 or 1260 years, each 
day signifying a year according to a rule of prophetic inter- 
pretation laid down in Ezek. IV. 6. This would make the 
period the same as that of the prophecy of the "two witnesses" 
of St. John, "a thousand two hundred and three score days," 
or years, and the same as the forty and two Jewish months of 
30 days each, during which the "holy city" was to be "trod- 
den down of the Gentiles." (42X30=1260.) 

In the light of this generally accepted interpretation of 
prophetic periods, which makes a day answer to a year of 360 
solar days, and makes a year consist of twelve months of thirty 
days each and each of these days answering to a year, we have 
in this i2th chapter of Daniel, three periods; namely, 1260, 
1290, and 1335 years: (See verses 7, 11, 12. The nth and 
12th verses reading: "And from the time that the daily sacrifice 
shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate 
set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 



142 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three 
hundred five and thirty days.") 

The common date of the co77imencevient of these three several 
periods, seems to be fixed by a particular occurrence — namely, 
the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the 
"abomination that maketh desolate" in the holy place, what- 
ever that may mean. Now Jesus, in speaking of the time of 
his second coming and the "end of the world" (ai'wv — age) re- 
ferred to this same thing and said, "When ye therefore, shall 
see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the 
prophet, standing in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him 
understand), then let them which be in Judea flee 
into the mountains" (Matt. XXIV., 15, 16). The parenthet- 
ical caution, "whoso readeth let him understand" 
would seem to imply that this language has a mys- 
tical import not superficially apparent in the mere letter of 
the text, but yet which may he u?uierstood when carefully con- 
sidered in the light of the spirit. In respect to this matter of 
the "setting up of the abomination of desolation in the holy 
place" and the time of its occurrence then, let us endeavor to 
obey the injunction, '•'•whoso 7-eadeth let him u?ider stand.'" 

Now the "holy place" is the middle department of the 
temple, where daily sacrifices are made by the priests. The 
temple itself, in all its parts is a material symbol or "pattern" 
of the heavens, of Deity, of man, and of the universe,* as these 
are in some sense correspondences of each other. 

The daily sacrifice, therefore, as is true of all other sacri- 
fices in the religious ceremonies of an outer and visible 
temple, signifies the yielding up of man's selfhood, his people 
whom in a priestly office he may represent, and all his 



*See Ex. XXV. 9, 40— Heb. VIII. 5; John II. 19, 21; I Cor. III. 16, 
17; Josephus Ant. B. III., Chap. VI., § 4. 



THE END OF THE AGES. I43 

proprium in the surrounding world, to Deity. An illustration 
of this idea, and of its inversion, is contained in the following 
incident: The mother of the two sons of Zebedee, James and 
John, brought those two disciples to Jesus, and asked that one 
of them might be permitted to sit upon His right and the 
other on His left, in His kingdom. When the ten other 
disciples heard of this, "they were moved with indignation 
against the two brethren, but Jesus called them unto Him and 
said; 'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise 
dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority 
upon them. But it shall not be so among you, but whosoever 
will be great among you let him be your minister, and whoso- 
ever will be chief among you let him be your servant; even as 
the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, 
and give his life a ransom for many.' " Matt. XX. 20-28. 

True religion, therefore, according to the standard of 
Christ, is here implicitly characterized as the abnegation of 
self, the '■'•sacrifice' of all mere personal and selfish ambition, 
and of the love of the dignity of ruling, as based merely upon 
the love of self (a passion, indeed, which, if carried out would 
dethrone Deity Himself:) and on the other hand, a divinely 
loving and Christlike devotion to the service of humanity. 
Those who seek self, and the dignity and greatness which be- 
long to the selfish exercise of personal or official power and 
authority, are here classed with the "Gentiles" and their 
"princes," who do the same things. It is only those who con- 
sent to be the "ministers" and "servants" of God's creatures 
who are here ranked with the true imitators and followers of 
Jesus, and who are the princes and rulers in a kingdom which 
is elsewhere declared to be "not of this world." 

Let us quote again, Rev. XL i, 2, 3: "And there was given 
me a reed like unto a rod ; and the angel stood saying. Rise and 



144 THE END OF THE AGES. 

measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that wor- 
ship therein." "But the court which is without the temple, leave 
out, and measure it not, for it is given to the Gentiles; and the 
holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." 
"And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall proph- 
esy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in 
sackcloth." 

The time, "times and a half" of Daniel XII. 7, and Rev. XII. 
14, and the 1260 days of Rev. XI. 3, and XII. 6, and the 42 
months of the above passage (30 days in a month according 
to the Jewish mode of reckoning), evidently refer to one and 
the same period of the world's history, and to different aspects 
of identical events occurring during that period ; and this, there- 
fore, must be the period during which the "daily sacrifice" is 
taken away, and the abomination of desolation spoken of by 
Daniel, the prophet, is set up in the holy place. Dan. XII. 
(it; Matt. XXIV. 15.) 

"But the court that is without the temple," the outer govern- 
ment of the church, leave out, and measure it not, for it is 
given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread 
under foot forty and two months. Now the "holy city" in 
prophetic symbolism, means the church, and was evidently 
that which, by degeneration and being "trodden down" be- 
came the "great city" of the 8th verse, "which spiritually is 
called Sodom and Egypt, wherein our Lord also was cruci- 
fied,' and is also the same which by prostitution became the 
"Babylon" of Rev. XVIII. And all this, let it be remarked, 
ensued in consequence of the "holy city," — the church, — being 
{spiritually) "trodden down of the Gentiles," or dominated by 
that Gentile 07- worldly principle which exercises that selfish 
human authority which subordinates divine things to the per- 
sonal or official dignity of those who rule. Now the admission 



THE END OF THE AGES. 145 

of Gentile people (hence, spiritually speaking, Gentile prin- 
ciples) into the "holy place" of the temple, was considered an 
'■'•abomination' and a pollution which brought the holiness of the 
place into desolation. 

If we, then, can find a period in the history of the Christian 
church (symbolized throughout by the Jewish) when this prin- 
ciple of Gentilism — this predominant love of personal author- 
ity and power, and of the dignities and honors of office, was 
enthroned in the "holy places" of the church, we will find the 
period of the setting up of "the abomination of desolation," 
and the period from which the 1260, 1290 and 1335 days pre- 
ceding the several crises of "the end" must be calculated. 

When was this point of time ? Just now,, reader, this ques- 
tion becomes one of the most absorbing interest. 

It is not to be denied that in all ages of the Christian 
church, there were persons ambitious to attain the highest 
positions of external dignity, authority and power. But this 
is not what we want to know. Our question is, on what year — 
if it be possible to be so precise — did that human ambition clearly 
begin to center itself in the sitprenie earthly head and government 
of the icniversal church ? And happily the answer stands clearly 
before us in the facts of history, with only a difference of a 
very few years in possible opinions as to when this develop- 
ment assumed a form so definite as to preclude all doubt of its 
character. 

In the year 587 an ecclesiastical council was called 
at Constantinople for the purpose of trying a presbyter who 
had been charged with criminal conduct. In the course of its 
formal proceedings, the council incidentally spoke of John, then 
patriarch or metropolitan bishop of Constantinople, under the 
title of '^Universal Bishop.'" Pelagius II., then bishop (or Pope) 
of Rome, hearing of this, wrote letters on the next year 

.10 



146 THE END OF THE AGES. 

Strongly protesting against the application of such a title to 
to the bishops of Constantinople, and claimed it for himself 
and successors in the see of Rome. This was in the year 588, 
remarkable as the T2th jubilee of 7 times 7 or 49 years each, 
from the birth of Christ, and remarkable also as the comple- 
tion of the first third of our grand cycle of 1764 years, dis- 
cussed in preceding pages. 

In the year 590 Pelegius died, and Gregory, his successor, 
known as Gregory the Great, took up, the next year, the 
controversy with the bishop of Constantinople con- 
cerning the claim to the title of Universal Bishop, 
and pursued it with great vehemence till he died, as- 
suming that dignity to himself and successors; and as 
a result of this controversy Pope Boniface III., the suc- 
cessor of Gregory, prevailed upon the tyrant Phocas to confirm 
him in his assumed dignity as the supreme head of the Church, 
— thus laying the foundation of all the subsequent sccularity — 
worldliness — selfish human ambition — '■^Gentilism" — in the gov- 
ernment of the Roman Church, and indirectly of the sub- 
sequent separation of the Eastern Church, chiefly on the 
basis of a counterclaim for the patriarch of Constantinople. 
This setting up of the abomination that makes desolate the 
true "holy place" or office, was also the commencement of the 
reign of antichrist, the "man of sin, the son of perdition, who 
opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or 
that is worshiped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of 
God, showing himself that he is God," concerning which St. 
Paul spoke prophetically in his second epistle to the Thessalo- 
nians (Chap II.) 

But this Gentilization, and hence spiritual desolation of the 
supreme outer government of the church, must not be consid- 
ered as involving the extinction of the inner or invisible 



THE END OF THE AGES. 147 

government in which the essence of the Christian religion con- 
sists; for in the sequel of the prophecy that the holy city (typi- 
fying the church) should be trodden down or "desolated" by 
gentilism forty and two months, it is said "I will give to my 
two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred 
and three score days, clothed in sackcloth" — this clothing 
being a symbol of humility contrasting with the worldy pride 
which was enthroned in the outer government of the church. 
(Rev. XI.) What these "two witnesses" distinctively signify, 
we do not propose to inquire just here, it being sufficient to 
know that they refer to some divinely instituted modes of pro- 
pagating the truth, and reaching the minds and consciences of 
mankind, other than what was furnished by the Gentilism of 
the papacy. Even this external government of the Church, 
with its animus of worldly pride, had its uses, and, in a sub- 
ordinate sense, its divine sanctions, whatever may have been 
its evils in another point of view; for it is said that "the court 
that is without is given to the Gentiles." And thus the papacy, 
with all its selfish assumptions of authority over the minds of 
ignorant and barbarous men, was made an instrument in the 
hands of the Divine Providence to bind the nations of medie- 
val Europe together as no other power could have done, and 
thus to lay the foundations of a new and better civilization of 
a subsequent age.* 



* Considering the year 588, when Pope Pelagius II. set up the claims for the 
supremacy, as the completion of one-third oi our grand cycle of 1764 years, it 
is a curious fact that at the end of another third of that cycle, or abo7tt the year 
1176, we see Pope Alexander III. with his foot upon the neck of the Emperor 
Frederick Barbarossa, as symbolizing the cubnination of the papal power. After 
that, the papal power gradually declined until the end of the cycle, when, in 
1764, its death knell may be said to have been sounded by the inauguration of 
modern ideas, as shown in a previous chapter. 



148 THF. END OF THE AGES. 

Now let US look again at our numbers. If we reckon the 
beginning of the first successful efforts to establish the su- 
premacy of the Pope of Rome over the universal church, from 
the year 588, when Pelagius II. preferred his claims to preced- 
ence over the patriarch of Constantinople, then the "time, 
times and a half," "forty-two months," or twelve hundred and 
sixty days (years) ended in the year 1848 — a year ever memor- 
able for its revolutions in the kingdoms of Europe, and from 
whose tumults the Pope of Rome himself was compelled to 
take refuge in temporary exile. The same year, also, 
was characterized by otherwise inexplicable phenomena which 
claimed to be the incipient opening of communication between 
the natural and spiritual worlds, and which, after baffling the 
most diligent and varied attempts of material science to ex- 
plain on any other hypothesis, number at this day many mil- 
lion believers in their reality, including many of the best minds 
in all the nations of the earth. The thirty additional years of 
Dan. XII. II (1290) years bring the period down to 1878, 
whatever of significance there may be in the events of this year; 
perhaps the crippling of the power of the "false prophet" (Mo- 
hammed) by the victory of Russia over the Ottomon Empire. If, 
however, we commence our reckoning at the year 591, when 
Gregory the Great took up the controversy for the supremacy, 
the added period of 1260 years will bring us down to 185 i, and 
the thirty additional years of Daniel's 1290 days (years), will 
end in 188 1 — precisely the year of the end symbolized in the 
Great Pyramid. Or the results may be placed before the eye 
by the following arithmetical formula: 

A. D. Yrs. A. D. Yrs. A. D. 
588+1260=1848 + 30=1878 
591 + 1260= 1851 + 30= 1 88 1 

In either case, the period of 1335 years, extending to the 



THE END OF THE AGES. I49 

time of blessedness (Dan. XII. 12), would exceed the period of 
1290 years by about the period symbolized in the great 
pyramid as extending from 1881 inches (years) to the symbols 
of justice and peace in the chambers beyond, where the 
beginning of a new and happier age may be considered as 
clearly represented. 

We may add that, so far as we know, these interpretations 
of the prophecies of the Scriptures, are new, and different from 
any that have heretofore been presented to the world; and 
were we here to carry out, in any degree of fullness, our. line 
of thought, and bring in their numerous confirmations and 
corollaries, and the applications of collateral portions of the 
prophetic scriptures of which it affords a key, our disquisition 
instead of beingconfined to a short chapter could be comprised 
only in a large volume. But as we have said before, this is 
not intended as a distinctively theological work, and these fore- 
shadowings from the Bible have been introduced here only be- 
cause of their wonderfully clear import, and direct pertinence 
to the subject under consideration. 

It is only for what they may seem to be worth, that we de- 
sire any class of our readers to consider these prophecies and 
and their interpretations. To some they will seem as signifi- 
cant and apposite to our subject as they appear to ourselves; 
to others they may seem as of doubtful import and application; 
while confirmed materialists will deny that there ever was or can 
be a spiritual prophecy of a future event. But none can fail 
to be impressed with their marvelous coincidence, to say the 
least, with deductions from the law of cycles, and with all the 
signs of the times, importing that we are on the very eve of 
some momentous crisis that will affect, for ages to come, not 
only our own nation, but the whole human race. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OUR NATIONAL IDEA, 



Ideas of primeval and despotic nations defined; Their progress traced; Ideas on 
which the American Republic was founded; National Independence, and 
Equal Rights of Man; These all worked up and actualized; At present, 
without a distinctive Idea; A national body without a national soul; Hence 
a state of political decay, tending to anarchy or despotism; No hope from 
existing political parties; Wanted, a new Idea — Onward! Onward! 

E will now endeavor to gather up the threads of connec- 
tion between the prophetic indications of these scientific 
and supernal sources of light on the one hand, and the teach- 
ings of existing conditions, "signs of the times,' and self-evi- 
dent philosophic principles, on the other. In seizing, at its first 
appearance, the thread of argument that promises to lead us 
progressively to the solution of the important problems still 
before us, we premise that every nation — indeed every human 
institution whatsoever — is based upon the averaged and com- 
bined affections and thoughts of the people who compose it. 
This combination of affection and thought constitutes the in- 
terior life of the organization, and may be called its Idea. And 
no nation or other institution can live — at least, none can have 
more than a passive, vegetative and evanescent vitality — with- 
out some central, dominant Idea to lift its aspirations and 
govern its progress. 

The political Idea of the primeval nations of the earth, was 
little more than that of protection against the reactionary 



THE END OF THE AGES. 151 

forces of the passions and lusts of the ignorant masses, which, 
left unrestrained, would have re-inaugurated the state of bar- 
barism or savagism. Hence those nations were despotic in 
the extreme; the will of the king, formed under the influence 
of his chosen counselors, being the only recognized law; while 
the masses of the people were held in bondage. The theologi- 
cal idea, or at least that portion of it which was given 
to the common people, was that God was simply a 
sovereign, of which the earthly ruler w^as a type; and 
all that men had to do was to obey Him, and placate him by 
sacrifices, lest He might destroy them. Crystallizing on the 
basis of these two allied thoughts combined in one, and form- 
ing all their subordinate institutions in accordance with the 
same, the principal concern of the rulers of those nations was 
to strengthen and consolidate their dominion and perpetuate 
their dynasties. To this end they jealously excluded all inno- 
vations upon their established customs and modes of thought, 
and surrounded themselves with such safeguards against change 
as could be furnished by a system of interested and hereditary 
castes, into which their priests, magi and philosophers were di- 
vided, and by whom all the knowledge then attainable, both 
on worldly and spiritual matters, was unfolded and conserved 
and imparted to, or withheld from the people, according to 
what they deemed most subservient to the stability of the 
government and the interests of the dominant classes. One 
great element of the patriotism of those times, therefore, was 
the desire to make the national institutions /^rwfl;?;,?;//, if possi- 
ble eternal, in all their primeval features, excluding even those 
changes that would unquestionably have been improvements. 
It is a remnant of this primeval, passive and negative idea 
that makes the Chinese and other nations of modern Asia so 
inhospitable to any new ideas in science, art, religion or 



152 THE END OF THE AGES. 

government, lest the revered customs and institutions of their 
fathers should be invaded and overthrown by them. The 
political Idea around which the Jewish people crystallized, was 
that of the equality of their coordinate tribes; and the theo- 
logical idea was that God was not only a sovereign, but a God 
of justice and mercy, who held them, as a people, under special 
protection. It was this idea that gave them that wonderfully 
persistent vitality as a nation and a theocracy which has 
enabled them to survive the disintegrating influence of wars 
and captivities, and which has preserved them to this day- — -a 
nation without an autonomy and whose territorial habitation; 
as it may be said, comprises the whole surface of the earth. 
The Idea of the Grecian Republics, especially that of Athens, 
was beauty, refinement, and the ennobling of the people. The 
Idea of Rome was, power, territorial aggrandisement, and law. 
The various nations of modern Europe, rising out of the bar- 
barism of medieval times, have, of necessity, had as one of 
their principal and basic ideas, that of despotic strength to 
withstand reactionary tendencies towards barbarism and an- 
archy; but upon the basis of this static thought and desire, 
which of itself can give only a dwarfed and stunted life to any 
political system, the exuberant genius of the people developed 
into the afterwards speedily nationalized ideas of geographical 
discovery, colonization, commerce, wealth; and in several of 
the nations — England and Holland particularly — these ideas 
blossomed forth into the recognition, in some degree, of the 
abstract rights of man, irrespective of birth, caste or condition. 
And these national ideas and their corresponding institutions, 
with their different shades and peculiarities of form as charac- 
teristic of the different nations from whose peculiarities of 
genius they were evolved, have been modified from age to age 
by the vicissitudes of war, and the law of growth, development, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 153 

decay and renaissance in other and higher forms, until they 
have come to the maturity and dead-ripeness of this universal 
harvest day. 

Through the operation of the law, before explained, by 
which the most self-sustaining, independent and liberty-loving 
subjects and citizens of the old governments migrate westward 
in search of room for a higher expansion of their individualities, 
these higher ideas of the most advanced nations of Europe 
were wafted across the Atlantic Ocean, and receiving thence 
still further development, became the vital points around which 
colonies were accreted in various sections of North America, — 
destined ultimately to unite and form one grand Republic. 
At this ulterior stage in the growth of human nature, there no 
longer existed the necessity of a centralization of power in a 
personal despot, to prevent a retrogression towards primeval 
anarchy and savagism, as the average intelligence, public virtue 
and love of common justice, had become capable of self-gov- 
ernment. The basic idea upon which the old monarchies 
were founded — that of arbitrary power to prevent reversion to 
primeval anarchy — formed no necessar)' element in the political 
philosophy of the founders of the American Republic, who, in the 
clear light of the times, and under the inspiration of all the politi- 
cal and social necessities of the people, were enabled to formulate 
two distinct Ideas, with a definiteness unknown in the under- 
lying conceptions of any other nation, past or present. These 
ideas, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, are: i, 

NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE; and 2, THE EQUAL RIGHTS OF MAN. 

These ideas were the dominant forces to lift the aspirations 
and govern the progress of the new nation, until they could be 
fully realized and embodied in the national history; but the 
reader will preceive it as a self-evident truth, and is requested 
to note the remark. That after the full realization and embodiment 



154 



THE END OF THE AGES. 



of a national Idea, it can lift the aspirations and govern the 
progress of the nation no longer. 

Let us now endeavor to bring the light of the foregoing 
thoughts, to the solution of the problem of the present and 
future of America. 

In this light observe we, then, as follows: For many years 
after the Declaration of Independence, and even after the suc- 
cessful war of the Revolution, our nation was agitated by con- 
tinual anxieties lest it should be re-absorbed by England, or 
subjugated by some other nation more powerful than itself. The 
crab, after shedding its old carapace preparatory to enlargement, 
isatthemercy of every hungry fish, and is obliged to lie low until 
it has had time to accrete around it a new and more capacious 
coating; and this might aptly stand as an illustration of the con- 
dition of our country during the first forty-two years of its history 
as an independent nation. France imposed onerous restric- 
tions on our commerce, which we were not prepared to resist. 
England annoyed us by searching our merchant vessels under 
the guns of her men-of-war, on suspicion that there were 
English subjects aboard of them engaged in the service of the 
United States. She also engaged in plots to divide the New 
England States from the rest of the Union, that she might 
annex the former to Canada, and thence, if possible, proceed 
to re-absorb the other states. It was not without reason, 
therefore, that our statesmen were thrown perpetually upon 
the qui vive, and that the messages of our early Presidents and 
the speeches of our Congressmen, frequently betrayed an 
undertone of deep anxiety for the preservation of our political 
independence. 

But all these anxieties were dispelled by the results of the 
war declared by the United States against Great Britain in 
1812. After that struggle, which ended with a treaty of peace 



THE END OF THE AGES. 



155 



between the two powers in 1814, our national independence 
was felt to be beyond any reasonable danger of disturbance by 
any foreign power. The first part of the Idea on which our 
Republic was founded, was thus completely actualized and 
worked out, and thus, for the future, became a mere dead 
letter, never afterwards having any influence upon the public 
action of the government or the direction of political society 
in the nation. 

But now the second branch of our political Idea. ^'■We hold 
these truths to be self -evident, that all men are created equal,'" was 
speedily pushed into the foreground and became the basis of 
intense and increasing agitation. There had descended from 
early colonial times, an idea, not so much political as social, 
that it was right and proper to buy and sell and hold in slavery 
persons of African descent who might be transported to, or 
born upon our shores. The principles of the Declaration of 
Independence, literally interpreted, plainly required the libera- 
tion of these, and they should be accorded the same rights to 
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" that were accorded 
to all others. It was this part of the national Idea that was 
now to be worked out, and we will briefly trace the successive 
stages of the progress of its accomplishment. 

Moved by a sense of this truth, Mr. Benjamin Lundy, in the 
year 1815 — one year after the close of the war — proceeded to 
organize the first anti-slavery society in Belmont, Ohio. In the 
years 1819 and 1820, the country was convulsed to its founda- 
tions over the question then before congress concerning the 
admission to the Union of Missouri as a state with a slave 
constitution; and the storm was only lulled to a temporary 
appearance of repose by the enactment of the Missouri com- 
promise, so called, which admitted Missouri as a state on con- 
dition that thenceforth no territory should be admitted as a 



156 THE END OF THE AGES. 

State with slavery, north of 36° 30' north latitude. In 1824 the 
first anti-slavery convention met in Philadelphia. In 1829 
William Loyd Garrison began to advocate "the immediate and 
unconditional abolition of slavery," even though such a meas- 
ure should involve the dissolution of the Union. This also 
was the year on which the "Victory and Spoils" principle was 
introduced into national politics by President Jackson — a prin- 
ciple which afterwards not only became a powerful ally of 
slavery, but proved otherwise as efficient in destroying the 
unselfish patriotism of American voters as it was in the intro- 
duction of all manner of bribery, corruption, fraud and un- 
fairness in the management of our party politics. In 1840, 
the "Liberty Party," so called — a distinct political party op- 
posed to slavery, was organized, and nominated James G. 
Birney as its candidate for the Presidency. In 1843, the sup- 
porters of the institution of slavery demanded and procured 
the annexation of Texas to the United States, for the purpose 
of increasing the area and multiplying the number of Con- 
gressional represen'tatives of slavery. This led to the Mexican 
war and eventuated in results contrary to what the advocates of 
slavery expected or desired. In 1848 the "Free Soil" party, 
having for its motto, '''' No farther extension of Slavery,'' was or- 
ganized under the lead of Martin VanBuren. In 1850, the 
Fugitive Slave law was enacted by Congress, which still farther 
intensified the feeling in the Northern States in opposition to 
slavery. In 1854 the Missotiri Co7npromise was repealed and 
the Kansas- Nebraska Bill passed by Congress for the purpose 
of creating one or two more slave states; and to counteract 
this measure the Repitblican Party was organized on the same 
year, its watchward being, '■'■No more slave states." Two years 
afterward, this party nearly succeeded in electing John C. 
Fremont as its candidate for the Presidency. In i860 this 



THE END OF THE AGES. 157 

party elected Abraham Lincoln as President, in consequence 
of which, all the slave states, except Delaware, Maryland and 
Kentucky, seceded from the Union and rebelled against the 
government, and brought on the war which ended in the vic- 
tory of the Union arms, and the utter extinction of slavery in 
1S65. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the 
Constitution ensued, securing equal rights to the Negro pop- 
ulation, including the right of suffrage; and thus the second 
branch of the great Idea on which Our Republic was founded 
became actualized by being embodied in the organic law of the 
land. 

Both branches of the political Idea on which our Republic 
was founded being thus embodied, actualized and accomplisKed, 
they may be considered as worked out to the very end, and 
their political influence may be regarded as totally exhausted. 
They are things of the/^i-/, and not of the present and future, 
and they have no longer any power to lift the aspirations, point the 
aims, or impel the progress of the nation. Since the enactment 
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitu- 
tion, we have been absolutely without any great positive and 
central national Idea. Hence we have been, .as it were, politi- 
cally dead — a political body without a political soul — drifting 
aimlessly upon the currents and counter-currents of personal, 
corporate and party selfishness and ambition, totally forgetful 
of the great and noble purposes for which God in His Provi- 
dence, and His divine laws of evolution, has made us a nation — 
totally forgetful of the duties which we, beyond all other 
nations of the world, owe to civilization, to progress, and to the 
elevation and ennobling, not only of our own people, but of the 
whole human race. Neither of the two great political parties 
proposes anything noble and useful for the nation's progress; 
and outside of the mere preservation of the national Union, 



158 THE END OF THE AGES. 

neither of them has an idea which, when thoroughly sifted and 
analyzed, is found to rise above "Victory and Spoils." 
Both have outlived their usefulness. Both are corrupt and 
corrupting, without the slightest hope of improvement. Both 
are anachronisms in the history of social evolution — dead things 
of the past — and the whole moral atmosphere is becoming 
fatally poisoned by the effluvia of their rottenness. Let them 
be buried out of sight and that quickly, while we endeavor 
to point out a method of working our politics that is more 
consonant with the laws of nature, the wants of humanity and 
the spirit of the age. While there are very many truly noble, 
honest and patriotic men who, although deploring the corrup- 
tions of these parties, are still with them, it is because they 
know not where else to go, or through what other channels to 
exercise the duties of suffrage. To all such, as the chief hu- 
man sources of hope for the nation, we would say, "Come up 
higher;" and after having still farther demonstrated the im- 
perfections and instability of present conditions we will en- 
deavor to show the way out. 

After the long struggle in working out our political Idea, it 
is, perhaps, not unnatural that our people should sit down, 
for a season, in comparative repose, for the purpose of enjoy- 
ing the fruits of victory. 

These fruits are sweet and pleasant and we are entitled to 
them as a reward of our past toil and self-sacrifice. But we 
warn you, thinking, reasoning, wealthy Americans, against the 
effects of "fullness of bread," especially while your brothers 
are starving; and against the drowsiness and stupor of indi- 
gestion. The garnered fruits of the past cycle of our national 
growth, over which you have thought to sit yourselves down 
and be happy, are already corrupting and breeding worms; 
and these worms, with other hungry political vermin, are not 



THE END OF THE AGES. 159 

only fattening upon the fruits of the old Tree, but upon the very 
carcass of the Tree itself, and draining the sources of its life. 
At present we know nothing better than to work with these 
parties which are at war with each other, and never can har- 
monize. The "new Idea'' would lead the minds of our people 
above them to a converging point of unity. 

When it was said in the olden times, "Let us stand still and 
see the glory of God," a voice soon came, "Speak to the 
children of Israel, that they go onward;" and thus we now 
speak to our noble countrymen. Immediately after the enact- 
ment of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the 
Constitution, there should have been posted upon the walls of 
the Capitol at Washington, and over the doors of every public 
office of government, the notice: 

"WANTED — A new and higher political Idea.'' 

It is not too late yet to circulate this notice. Let it go 
from brain to brain and from heart to heart and from patriot 
to patriot — '■'■Wanted — A new and higher political Idea.'" With 
it, our country may go on gloriously to the fulfilment of its 
divine destiny, banishing ignorance, poverty and crime; 
sheltering untold millions of free, intelligent and happy souls 
under the folds of its stars and stripes, and scattering the 
blessings of light, freedom and brotherhood throughout the 
world; but without it we shall, in the end, inevitably be com- 
pelled to invoke the safeguards of Despotism to prevent a rev- 
ersion to primeval barbarism. So Onward! my countrymen; 
Onward ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CAN AMERICA GO ONWARD IN HER PRESENT COURSE WITHOUT 
FINAL AND CERTAIN DISRUPTION? 

Success of our Government in the past; Its structure admirable in some re- 
spects, defective in others; Folly of unequalified suffrage; Corruptions 
thence arising; Briber}' by official patronage; Bar-room cliques and primary 
elections; Legislation bought and sold; All departments demoralized; 
Decline of respect towards law-makers and laws; Thence corruptions in 
social life; Fashionable Christianity; Have we any statesmen? Defects 
in our educational system; Our political body diseased; Can we go on in 
this way ? The answer formed in the public conscience; Black Friday 
and financial depression; Discontent of workingmen; Trades Unions 
and strikes; Forebodings of change; The "good new" times, rather 
than the "good old" times — "Wanted, A new political Idea." 

'UT can we go onward without changing our course, and 
that, too, by more than one point of the compass ? This 
is a question of serious import. That we may be enabled to 
answer it intelligently and with certainty, let us briefly review 
the condition and modus operandi of our politics and social 
life. 

Though our republican government during the first cycle of 
its history, ending with i860, was, upon the whole, a grand 
success, there were defects in its structure and mechanism 
which revealed themselves more and more conspicuously as time 
rolled on. With an admirable basic outline in its three depart- 
ments — Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary (and with the two 
houses of Congress copied in the several state Legislatures). 



THE END OF THE AGES. l6l 

to act as checks upon each other, the qualifications of 
popular suffrage by which these Departments of Government 
were constituted, were left altogether too loose and indefinite. 
Any male citizen of the United States after the age of twenty- 
one years, was allowed to cast votes to fill the offices of gov- 
ernment, without being required to know anything about the 
functions and duties, or even the meaning of those offices, or 
to be able to read the names written or printed upon the bal- 
lots which others might, for good or evil purposes, place in his 
hands. Thus many persons to this day, come up annually to 
the polls, who, if they should be asked to define the difference 
between the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary departments 
of government, would be unable to answer or even to define the 
meaning of those terms. And yet their votes are counted as 
equal to those of the most intelligent citizen. They are even 
taught to consider the privilege of voting as the very highest 
privilege which they can enjoy as American citizens; whereas 
a ballot in the hands of a person who knows not how to use it, 
and has no intelligent conception of what it is designed to 
effect, is undeniably much like an edged tool in the hands of 
a child — more liable to injure than to benefit him. From the 
nature of the case, these persons are ever liable to become 
tools in the hands of unscrupulous and ambitious demagogues 
who know how to play upon their passions and prejudices and 
to use them as mere voting machines for their own personal and 
party ends. 

Emboldened by successes thus in the first instance rendered 
possible, this demagoguism has used its ignorant and pliant tools 
to trample upon the laws and break down the safeguards of the 
purity of the ballot box. Representatives of the slums and 
kennels of Europe, who neither know nor care anything about 
American institutions, but who are willing to sell their votes 

11 



l62 THE END OF THE AGES. 

for SO small a price as a glass of liquor, have often by thou- 
sands, been illegally rushed through the form of naturalization, 
clothed with the prerogatives of voters, and brought to the 
polls as so many pairs of tongs by which political aspirants 
put in additional votes for themselves or the objects -of their 
selfish craving. In not a few instances — particularly in the 
great city of New York — these ignorant and riotous hordes 
have been led from district to district and from poll to poll, 
repeating and stuffing until some districts have been able to 
count more votes than the whole number of inhabitants they 
contained, including men, women and children. Cunning 
thieves thus ride into office over the ruins of republican prin- 
ciples, and honest citizens must submit to be ruled and fleeced 
by them. 

The founders of our government, in their commendable love 
of universal liberty, seem to have overlooked the axiom, that 
the best, the safest, and even the most liberal government for 
all parties concerned, can be founded and sustained only on 
the basis of the highest intellectual and moral developments 
which the nation aft'ords; and that if -it be said that the whole 
of the population contains more intelligence and virtue than 
any part of it, it is equally true that the whole of it contains 
more ignorance, vice, lawlessness and disorder than any part. 
These latter qualities have really no right to representation in 
any body politic; and in proportion as they are represented, 
the government of that body politic will be unwise, disorderly, 
unjust, and lacking in the elements even of true and popular 
freedom. 

Our method of distributing official patronage, making ser- 
vices to the party that is successful in elections, the ground of 
appointments to office, has been one grand system of bribery. 
From the time the infamous principle, "To the victors belong 



THE END OF THE AGES. 163 

the spoils," was created as a rule in politics, our corruptions 
began to increase; and for more than a quarter of a century, 
the political action that has won, has, probably in the majority 
of cases, been impelled not by the love of country and good 
government, but by the selfish love ot office and its emolu- 
ments. Our nominations to office are forestalled by bar-room 
cliques, and as a rule, the managers of primary meetings are 
successful in proportion as they are dishonest. The persons 
nominated and elected by such appliances, rely upon official 
peculation to pay the expenses of victory, often dearly pur- 
chased, and seldom scruple to avail themselves of any means 
of enrichment, legitimate or otherwise, which the office affords. 
They have been taught that "office" is synonymous with 
"spoils," and now that they are in office, their great business 
is not so much to serve as to spoil the people, and pocket the 
gains. Hence there is scarcely a legislative body in the land, 
from the lowest municipal council to the great Congress of the 
United States, that may not be purchased if the price be only 
made large enough; scarcely an Executive that is not owned 
by rings and party cliques; and even many of the judges of 
our courts of justice are more or less corruptly partial and 
subservient to the party and the voters to whom they owe 
their position. Under such conditions, who can wonder at the 
genesis of the disgusting brood of official peculators and con- 
structive robbers of the existence of which we are reminded 
every morning on opening our daily newspapers ? 

With these sad examples before their eyes, it is impossible 
that the sentiment of respect towards the makers and execu- 
tors of our laws should not be greatly diminished among the 
people; and with this naturally comes a diminished respect for 
the laws themselves. Hence there are very many persons, and 
even these do not always belong to the worst classes of society, 



104 THE END OF THE AGES. 

who deem it not specially wrong to evade the laws, nor even to 
violate them in their own interests, when they can do so with 
the assurance of impunity. Hence also comes the fact that 
our best citizens, commonly speaking, are unwilling to accept 
candidacy for offices of public trust, even when nominations 
are tendered to them. They do not consider it quite respect- 
able to be an alderman, a member of the State Legislature, or 
even of the Congress of the United States, as it once was. 

The fountain head of our political and social life being thus 
corrupted, the streams of demoralization as they flow forth, 
divide and subdivide, and diffuse themselves through all parts 
of the great body politic and social. Commerce and trade 
have become, to a frightful extent, a system of fraud and con- 
structive robbery. Selfish speculators buy up the produce of 
the country, forestall markets, and amass fortunes from the 
artificially enhanced prices which the people are compelled to 
pay for the necessaries of life. Every article of commerce is 
adulterated that can be, and is palmed off as the genuine. 
Equivocation, withholding of the exact truth, falsehood, decep- 
tion and sharp bargaining, are the rules of action in commer- 
cial life; honesty and open-minded sincerity, the exception; 
and the exception is so rare as to be coupled with the general 
belief that strict honesty and success in business almost never 
go hand in hand. 

The examples of easy living and rapid amassing of fortunes 
which these classes of society sometimes afford, have fasci- 
nated our youth; while the warnings presented by the innumer- 
able instances of revulsion, failure and sudden reduction to 
poverty, which come from the same classes, are not generally 
heeded. Hence the native American youth has no longer any 
disposition to get his living by manual toil. He is not in- 
clined to learn a trade or follow the plow as our fathers did in 



THE END OF THE AGES. 165 

their youth. Nor is he content with the prosy routine of his 
country home and its social surroundings, but rushes to some 
populous city and seeks a clerkship, or endeavors perhaps, ir- 
respective of his own natural qualifications, to push himself 
into some one or another of the already overcrowded profes- 
sions; or failing in all these, he waits in idleness, Macawber- 
like, for something to "turn up." 

Floating supinely along in these general currents of the 
times, our youth become enervated, our young women give 
themselves up to frippery, gew-gaws and novel reading, marri- 
ages grow alarmingly less frequent in proportion to the native 
population, wives grow .more and more unwilling to bear the 
inconveniences of maternity, and more and more learned in the 
questionable art of avoiding its liabilities, the work of pro- 
creating the rising generation has fallen so largely in the hands 
of the low and ignorant emigrants from Europe, as to give 
some coloring to the cry that the purely American race is dy- 
ing out. 

Even the Religioii of the times has in a great degree lost its 
hold on the public conscience, and has become entangled with 
the prevailing materialism. Instead of that Christianity which 
made Felix tremble as he listened to the preaching of Paul, 
and which came down in pentecostal showers upon the souls 
of believers, creating in them a new and heroic life, we have a 
fashionable Christianity, elastic, and fitting the consciences of 
the stock-jobbing, money-getting and pleasure-loving audiences 
as easily as an India rubber garment. 

The public intellect — we mean that which is conspicuous in 
the arena of politics, statesmanship, morals and social life — also 
partakes of this common degeneracy. Where are now our 
Jeffersons, our Clays, our Calhouns, our Websters and our 
Sumners ? Politicians, we have, indeed, by the thousands, 



l66 THE END OF THE AGES. 

who can make incisive "stump speeches;" but have we really 
any statesmen at all, who are deserving the name ? Doubtless 
there are great original thinkers among us capable of grappling 
with the problems of the times, and giving us some light as to 
the true remedies of the political and social evils into which 
we have fallen, but where are they ? Alas, neglected, and 
possibly starving in garrets, pitied and despised for their sup- 
posed incapacity to drive bargains and gather wealth; while 
in the hurry-scurry of money making and pleasure seeking, 
nobody finds time to listen to their words of wisdom and 
warning. 

We boast of our schools and colleges, and certainly they are 
far better than none, while we think they are far short of what 
they should be to meet the demands of the times. If we ex- 
cept the very highest of these institutions of learning — and 
even those perhaps should not be excepted — they are open to 
the charge of superficiality, deficiencies in their curriculi of 
study, and unnaturalness in their methods of imparting in- 
struction. Too much time is spent in the study of dead lan- 
guages, too little in the study of living issues and practical 
uses. Too much care is exhausted in giving a surface polish 
to the intellect; too little in teaching the laws of nature in the 
various departments of the physical, moral and social world, 
and laying the broad foundations of practical, manly wisdom. 
The common schools, where the minds of the masses who are 
afterwards to constitute the great voting portion of our citi- 
zenship receive their only instruction, teach reading, writing, 
arithmetic, geography, grammar and sometimes the rudiments 
of algebra, geometry, French and German, and pursue their 
processes of stufiing the memory until the scholar can make a 
fair outward show on examination day, and then he is turned 
loose upon the world without any practical knowledge of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 167 

himself or the great struggle of life that is before him — without 
any knowledge of political and social science, the structure 
and laws of the government of which he is to become a citizen, 
or the rights and duties of citizenship, or of the claims of his 
country and human society upon him. Thus, even with 
naturally a good mind and heart, he too often falls into the 
hands of artful demagogues, who manipulate him at their will, 
and takes his place among the dangerous instead of among 
the useful classes. 

Postponing, for another chapter, the consideration of the 
natural harmonics, and the present artificial and convulsing 
warfare between Labor and Capital, let us here pause to in- 
quire, what do all the foregoing facts import ? and what les- 
sons may a wise and thoughtful people read in them ? That 
these shortcomings, injustices, vices, crimes and general 
wrongs in the workings of our political and social system in- 
dicate a normal development in our civilization, no one will 
pretend. That they give evidence of deeply seated disease in 
our political Body, no one will deny. That a just God can 
sanction and bless a system that works these evils and dis- 
orders, no one can believe. The question then recurs with 
increased emphasis. Can we, as a nation, go onward in the 
course which we are pursuing ? Can we continue our false 
basis of suffrage, in which the grossest ignorance of our whole 
governmental structure, and of the power, significance and 
tendency of a vote outside of the ambitious aims of some per- 
son, party or clan, is made equal in the ballot box with the 
highest intelligence, virtue, loyalty and patriotism ? Can we 
go on, and prosper and be politically and socially blessed, 
under an elective system that involves, even the possibility of 
the coercion of voters by threats of discharge from employ- 
ment, or other inflictions which the wealthy have power to 



l68 THE END OF THE AGES. 

visit upon the poor; that permits the purchase of votes for 
the poor consideration of a few dollars, or by promises of 
official preferment in case of the success of a particular candi- 
date or party, or even for the momentary gratification of a 
vitiated appetite that is afforded by a glass or two of liquor ? 
Is there anything of order, or peace, or prosperity, or social 
and political progress, involved in a system which admits of 
the tricks and frauds and violences which are almost univer- 
sally practiced by our politicians, including- the stuffing of the 
ballot boxes, the false counting of votes, and the rendering of 
false returns, by which the dishonest and wicked are con- 
stantly getting into office, and the best and only deserving- 
men in the community are as constantly being kept out? In 
short, is there any natural permanence, or any desirability in 
the farther continuance, of a system which, by the temptations 
it throws out on the one side and the disabilities it creates on 
the other, has the constant tendency to turn good men 
into rogues, and to make bad men worse ? And can the 
great Car of Progress, loaded with our venal Legislatures who 
sell laws to the highest bidders; with our partizan executive 
and judicial officers; our official "victors" in elections with 
their hands full of "spoils;" our peculators, our embezzlers, 
our defaulters, our corruptionists of all grades, inside and out- 
side of politics, and to whom we are having a fresh introduc- 
tion every morning in columns of the daily newspapers — can 
this Car, I say, thus loaded, roll smoothly down the vista of 
the ages to come, greeted with the hosannahs of the one hun- 
dred, two hundred, four hundred millions that are yet to 
inhabit this broad, fertile land ? Answer this question, 
Americans! Answer \\. for yourselves; and answer it with noble, 
patriotic, philanthropic, God-revering dceds^ and not merely 
with weak and irresolute words. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 1 69 

The answer is already formed in the secret recesses of the 
public consciousness, but remains as yet undefined and unex- 
pressed. We have had lessons that have left their im- 
pressions. A few years ago we delusively supposed that 
we were at the height of financial prosperity. But 
while we were buying, selling, speculating, gambling in 
stocks, building houses, importing merchandise from foreign 
lands, and dreaming of wealth and fine clothes and balls and 
parties and pleasures, a rumbling sound of tumult, mingled 
with expressions of terror, suddenly broke forth one day from 
Wall street. That day has since been known as "Black Fri- 
day." Commercial confidence was shocked and business was 
paralyzed. Those who had money held to it with a tighter grasp 
lest it should depart from them, and not return. Houses in 
process of building were abandoned unfinished ; furnace fires 
died out; the rumble of factories and machine shops toned 
down into tiny moaning sounds; real estate shrank in value 
from thirty to fifty percent. Capitalists deemed new enter- 
prises unsafe and large portions of the laboring population 
stood with idle hands, emaciated, starving, and of course, 
discontented. Those who were so fortunate as to 
be employed banded together in Trades Unions for 
the purpose of coercing capital, keeping up and by strikes 
compelling the increase of their wages, and barring out from 
employment those who did not belong to their society, and 
who, under the relentless pressure of want would have been 
glad to do the same work for lower wages. Theorists pre- 
dicted the revival of business from autumn to spring and from 
spring to autumn. In several instances there were seeming 
signs that the predictions were about to be fulfilled, but these 
proved illusive. The increased commercial and industrial 
activity occurring at several seasons has been but partial and 



lyo THE END OF THE AGES. 

local, and of short duration. T]ie reason of all this is, that times 
and seasons have changed, requiring a universal readjustment of our 
political, social and industrial machinery. Of this there is a 
secret, undefined instinct pervading the thinking classes of the 
community. Thousands of minds are impressed by an inward 
sense which they can, as yet, scarcely define to themselves, 
and of which they say little or nothing to each other — that 
this is the end of that which has gone before, and that we are 
near — very near — thebeginning of some new rolem ourpolitical 
and social development, which will introduce new plans, new 
aspirations, new methods, and new political and social life. 

It is the voice of God, whispering to the inmosts of the hu- 
man heart and consciousness. It is prophecy true, from 
heaven — divine — and it must and will be fulfilled. Let there 
be, therefore, no more sighing for the recurrence of the "good 
old times" of our business and financial world. Those "old" 
times will not, nnist not, ever come again. Let us then make 
the conditions, invite the approach and cherish the confident 
hope of the "good new times" and of times incomparably better 
than any which either we or our fathers have ever yet seen. 
And now in order that the essentials for the realization of this 
hope and expectancy may in due time be forthcoming we will 
again display our advertising bill: Wanted — A New Politi- 
cal Idea. 



CHAPTER XV. 

LABOR THROES THAT PRECEDE THE NEW POLITICAL AND 
SOCIAL BIRTH. 

The New Idea eternally IS, and must be discovered, not contrived; The as- 
cended Spirit of the Old; Slavery destroyed, and the spirit of Liberty in- 
spiring all; Laboring population becoming restive; Trades Unions; Their 
mistakes and inconsistencies; Injustices to non-society men; Injury to them- 
selves; War with capital; Threats of violence; Hostility against what they 
would like to be and do themselves; Responsibilities of the wealthy; Poverty 
and suffering widespread; Prayers of the poor will be heard; Riotous 
passions; French Revolution; July riots of 1877; Communism and its 
menaces; Terrible possibilities of destruction; Such a coup imminent; The 
iron-heeled despot'conditionally^invoked; Yet, " Wanted — A N^ew jVatio7tal 
Idea." 

'T^HE New Idea to which the future machinery of our govern- 
J- ment is to be adjusted and for the development and final 
embodiment of which the latter must work, is not one to be 
artificially contrived in the wisdom of man. It is one which 
eternally IS — being divinely self-existent in the nature of 
things; and our part is simply to discover it, and follow its lead- 
ings. Its own evolutionary forces are of themselves able, 
when its natural birth period arrives, to announce its advent 
and define its character to those who are wise, and who look 
for its approach. Even now, those whose minds are open to 
the occult causes of certain phenomena in the social world, 
may catch some glimpses of its incipient unfoldings. It may, 
however, be premature, as yet, for us to give a definite name 



172 THE END OF THE AGES. 

to the child that is struggling to its birth but is not yet dis- 
entangled from its placental folds. But we will so far antici- 
pate, as to say, That the New Idea is a legitimate offspring and 
thus partakes of the inner and sublimated spirit of the Old. 

Slavery was abolished, not so much by the voluntary proc- 
lamation of President Lincoln, as by the fiat of the great per- 
vading and indwelling Spirit which rules rulers. After liberty 
had been proclaimed to the captives, and Africa had marched 
forth with a high hand through a sea crimsoned with the 
blood of some hundreds of thousands of slain warriors, the 
emancipation which, on its first proclamation, was opposed by 
the angry prejudices of millions, was universally acquiesced in 
as the will of God, and the best thing for the country. A new 
moral instinct soon began to be developed in the public mind, 
which loathed the very remembrance of slavery as a horrible 
injustice, and rejoiced that the last shackle of the old time 
bondman was broken. It went farther than this, and vaguely 
whispered to itself, "Slavery in any form and to any human 
being guiltless of crime, is wrong. Nay, the very spirit and 
principle of slavery, by whatsoever name it may be called, how- 
ever plausible the form it may assume, and however subtle in 
action upon body or soul, is an injustice and a crime against 
those who are made to suffer it — dwarfing their manhood, and 
obstructing that full development of their faculties and powers 
which is possible only under a state of entire freedom. " It was 
vaguely felt, if not yet definitely asserted in words, that if human 
nature, including equally all human beings, was "endowed with 
certain inalienable rights," and that among these was the 
right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," then these 
"rights" in their spirit, including the right of every adult man 
and woman, to every condition and facility which society and 
governmental institutions can afford, whereby human nature 



THE END OF THE AGES. 173 

may attain to the maximum of its normal possibilities, en- 
noblingitself tothe highest extent, and enjoying all the dignity, 
respect and developed manhood, of which it is rendered capa- 
ble by the endowments of the Creator. 

Like a subtile, potential and vivifying aura, secretly and 
silently brooding 'more or less over the whole mass of mankind, 
this thought began to creep vaguely into the minds of re- 
turned soldiers, who, by toils and sacrifices had wrought vic- 
tory for the Union, and death to Slavery. They felt that the 
country for which they had fought was their country, as well 
as that of the contractors, speculators and politicians who 
stayed at home, fleeced the government and amassed fortunes; 
and that the victory they had gained was a victory for them 
even more than for any class of persons who had not partici- 
pated in the sacrifices and dangers of the struggle. They 
moreover felt that the destruction of slavery which they had 
wrought out, should be a destruction of slavery for the^n, and 
that the universal liberty established by their victorious arms 
in the sphere of political and civil life, should in some way 
tend to enhance their own freedom from whatever obstructions 
might yet be imposed upon the normal exercise and enjoy- 
ment of their powers. Gradually this feeling extended, in a 
more intensified degree than ever before, to the whole labor- 
ing population, who were dependent, for the necessaries of 
life, upon such rewards of their toil as Capital might see fit to 
bestow. They became restive under the restrictions with which 
they were bound, and contrasting their condition with that of 
those who were living in ease and opulence, they became im- 
pressed that in some way they had been deprived of the share 
of the good things of life to which they were justly entitled. 

Now this sentiment, this instinct, this aspiration for liberty 
and enlargement, is natural, true and divine. It constitutes. 



174 THE END OF THE AGES. 

indeed, a vital and most important element in the new social 
and political IDEA to which our nation hereafter must work. 
But for want of a wise, intelligent and practical form of em- 
bodiment, the workings of this perpetually increasing instinct, 
diffused among the masses, have been disastrous, and unless it 
can be embodied in a scientific and harmonic form, equally 
consonant with the interests of all classes, its workings must 
of necessity continue to be disastrous, even to a final 
consummation in some terrific social and national cat- 
astrophe. To show that this last remark does not 
exaggerate the probabilities in the case, and to set forth a 
wholesome warning to all classes of citizens, we here submit 
the following conspectus of affairs and tendencies in the indus- 
trial world. 

As there never was a time when the aspirations of the labor- 
ing masses for financial and social equality were so great as 
during the period immediately following the late civil war, so 
never, until then, was there a time when the laboring popula- 
tion of our country were so much disposed to combine for the 
protection of its interests against the extortions of capital. 
Almost every branch of industry formed its "Societies" and 
"Trades Unions," the avowed objects of which were to liber- 
ate the working classes from the depressing conditions to 
which they were subject, and to promote their general social 
and financial welfare. The mistakes and inconsistencies of 
practical action into which they fell, have been calamitous in 
their results, not only to themselves, but to the whole com- 
munity. With an iniperiousness never ventured on before, they 
undertook to dictate to employers the conditions on which 
labor should be performed, both as to the amount of wages 
that should be paid, and the number of hours which should go 
into a day's work. They importuned legislatures to pass the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 175 

"Eight Hour Law," so-called, which, when passed, as it was 
by a few legislatures, proved totally inoperative, simply be- 
cause no human legislature can compel capitalists to employ 
labor for any given number of hours, or at any given price. 
After the law had been passed, the workmen demanded the 
same wages for eight hours that they had before been receiv- 
ing for ten hours work. They were told they might quit work, 
and of course they had no redress. 

In working professedly for the liberation and elevation of 
the laboring class, they have forgotten that a large portion of 
that class — those who do not happen to belong to their organ- 
izations — are also men like themselves, having as much right to 
the resources of the labor market as they have, and having 
the natural and indefeasible right to sell their labor for any 
price which they can get for it. They have arbitrarily for- 
bidden these to work unless upon terms of their own dicta- 
tion, and have visited mob violence upon those who have had 
the temerity to disobey — ^thus in the very effort, professedly, 
of procuring freedom and justice for themselves, perpetrating 
acts of the most flagrant tyranny and injustice to others of 
their own class. 

In times of strikes, employers generally have at their call as 
much labor as they can employ at their own prices, which are 
accepted with eagerness by men who before had been idle. 
These society men do not seem to see in this fact the proof 
that there is more laboring force in the community than 
capital can employ at a profit, nor do they see in their own 
acts Of violence in restricting these men from performing 
work which they themselves have declined at the market 
prices, a proof either of their own thoughtlessness or crim- 
inal selfishness in endeavoring to monopolize the whole 
labor market, which in justice should be held as free 



176 THE END OF THE AGES. 

and open to all competitors as any other market what- 
soever. 

Organized and enabled to bring their whole combined 
strength to bear on given points, these societies and Trades 
Unions are relatively mighty. The unorganized workers, act- 
ing as isolated individuals, are relatively weak. The principle 
that "Might makes right" is mercilessly carried out by the or- 
ganized against the unorganized and this fact will have to be set 
down against these organizations as a suspicious consideration, 
when we come to the question to what course of action will they 
probably resort when the final solution of the pending problem 
can no longer be postponed ? Is it war, subjugation and en- 
slavement that they mean? 

There is another notable aspect of the ethics of this com- 
bined labor movement. Its speakers declaim vehemently 
against wealthy monopolies as powers that oppress labor. To 
a certain extent they are undoubtedly correct in this; but what 
shall we say of their own counter monopolies which, by their 
organizations, they have instituted, and by which they en- 
deavor to appropriate to themselves at their own prices, all 
the labor interests of the land — dooming to enforced idleness 
thousands of their fellow beings equally deserving with them- 
selves, simply because these did not choose to become mem- 
bers of their associations, or applying for membership were 
rejected ? 

It is impossible that a system so unwise should not work 
evil to all parties, and especially to those for whose benefit it 
was instituted. We will cite a few illustrative examples. 
Some years ago, the ship calkers of the city of New York, 
struck for higher wages. The consequence was that the 
owners of ships, refusing to pay the increased demand, sent 
their vessels to Canada, Nova Scotia and other foreign ports. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 177 

to be calked, where the work could be donemore economically, 
— leaving most of the strikers in hopeless idleness. And that 
branch of industry has not recovered its former prosperity in 
New York to this day (1880). 

A wealthy firm, in the Eastern District of Brooklyn, en- 
gaged in the sugar refining business, employs a large 
number of coopers. A few years ago these coopers or- 
ganized in a society, and supposing that they could 
have things much in their own way, undertook to make 
conditions for themselves which were annoying to their em- 
ployers and detrimental to the interests of the business. Not 
only did they fix their own wages, which were acceded to, but 
they were careful so to graduate the amount of their daily work 
as never to have any great surplusage of barrels on hand, be- 
yond what were needed for immediate use. If the employers 
should attempt to discharge any of their number, for what- 
ever cause, the rest would quit work until he was reinstated. 
If they desired to take an afternoon, or a whole day, for a 
baseball match, or any other recreation, they would all quit 
work in the busiest times, and leave the interest of the em- 
ployers to suffer. These and other annoyances worked upon 
the patience of the employers until the latter warned the work- 
men that this state of things must cease, or the firm would be 
obliged to procure machinery and have their barrels made by 
steam power and by workmen less skilled and fewer in num- 
ber than themselves. The threat being defied, was promptly 
carried out and the Coopers' Union was discharged in a body. 
A small number of non-society men were employed to do the 
work, but were compelled to sleep and be fed in the building in 
which they did their work, guarded by the police for three months 
during which time it was impossible for any of them to venture 
abroad without danger of being assaulted and violently beaten 

12 



lyS THE END OF THE AGES. 

by the disappointed and angry men wiio were constantly on the 
watch for them. 

Another case: A certain savings bank in the Eastern Dis- 
trict of Brooklyn had in contemplation the erection of a large 
and costly building. Being slack times, the masons, carpen- 
ters, lath and plasterers, etc., in the place set their minds on 
it in hopes of a job. The master builders were very cautiously 
preparing their bids for the contract, but apprehending the 
usual strikes of their workmen would occur after getting the 
building fairly under way, they hesitated and while they were 
figuring and forecasting the contingencies of the local labor 
market, a builder from Connecticut came and took the con- 
tract, and brought his workmen with him from the country; 
and the resident mechanics and laborers were "left out in 
the cold," simply because they had taught employers to dis- 
trust them, and to expect strikes at inconvenient moments. 

It is this dread of strikes in the midst of unfinished works 
that has thrown a damper upon all new enterprises which re- 
quire labor for their accomplishment. Thus the industry of 
the country is crippled. The labor market is depressed and 
the production of that wealth which is the only source from 
which Labor can hope for its rewards, is reduced to its mini- 
mum. Each returning autumn and winter, during the last 
decade, has found from 60,000 to 75,000 men in idleness and 
destitution in the single city of New York. Men and women, 
able and willing to work at almost any price, if work could be 
found, are often seen going from door to door, soliciting food 
and cast off clothing, while "tramps" are infesting the country, 
begging, stealing and committing depredations to that extent 
which has sometimes compelled farmers to combine and drive 
them from particular counties and townships that have been 
overrun bv them. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 179 

Writhing under aggravated misfortunes and disabilities, 
working men — those of the more ignorant grades especially, 
and who are unable to trace effects to their true causes — 
have come to think that wealthy capitalists are their natural 
enemies, by whom they have been, in some undefinable way, 
defrauded out of what is their due. They look upon the 
splendid mansions that have been built, furnished and beauti- 
fied by their labor; and forgetting that they have received out 
of those mansions, in the form of wages, all they have agreed 
to put into them in the form of labor, they think that they 
ought to own those fine buildings, because they were built by 
their labor. And this feeling of jealousy and hostility has 
sometimes been carried to an extent of passion and fanaticism 
which has nearly reached the point of applying the blazing 
torch to the property of the wealthy. After the news had 
been passed over the wires some years ago, that a large por- 
tion of the city of Chicago had been devastated by fire, 
a loud-mouthed orator of one of the Labor Leagues of New 
York was heard to say, with certain brimstony imprecations 
not here repeated; "Let it burn — it would be a good thing for 
the laboring men if some more of the cities would burn down." 
Said another at a subsequent meeting: "Who would be free 
himself must strike the blow. The time is approaching when 
the forbearance of the working man will cease to be a virtue; 
and then woe be to the nabobs and aristocrats, whose blood 
shall flow in the streets of New York." And the remark was 
greeted with a round of applause; though it is fair to add, that 
when the writer of this, who was present, arose and remarked 
that there were other ways of righting wrongs than by com- 
mitting greater wrongs, and cautioned the audience to re- 
member that, while the muscular power was on their side, the 
grape, canister and the military science, were on the other — 



l8o THE END OF THE AGES. 

the sentiment of the audience was turned against the violence 
of the first speaker. 

Such is now, and such for many years has been, not only in 
our own country but also in others, the unnatural strife 
between Labor and Capital. We say "unnatural strife," be- 
cause in a well regulated state of things there is really no 
more antagonism between Labor and Capital than there is be- 
tween a man's stomach and the food he puts into it. What 
could one do without the other ? Without Capital, Labor 
could not be employed or rewarded; without Labor, Capital 
could not be increased nor even maintained, but would grad- 
ually dwindle into poverty and destitution. The two, working 
harmoniously and equitably together, become as one in the en- 
joyment of common blessings. 

The hostility of laboring men against wealthy capitalists is 
a hostility against that which they desire to be themselves. 
What man among them, whose aspirations extend beyond the 
lager-beer saloon, would not, if he could, be that very capital- 
ist and man of wealth — whom he now envies and detests ? And 
who, on becoming such a capitalist, would not do precisely as 
all capitalists do — employ labor on the most economical 
terms and even then only when it will pay? We do not ask 
these questions, nor have we made any of the foregoing re- 
marks, in any spirit of unfriendliness to the laboring classes. 
On the contrary, this class have, and always have had, our 
most active sympathies, because they most need them; and in- 
deed, it is mainly in their interests that the foregoing remarks 
are submitted. 

And now, on the other hand, we will remind capitalists of 
one thing which they cannot deny and which ought to interest 
and instruct them. It is that, in an exchange of conditions 
with the laboring men, having had no more advantages of 



THE END OF THE AGES. l8l 

education and culture than they have had, and being subjected 
to toil and poverty and destitution as large numbers of them 
have been, the same impatience, turbulence and even un- 
reasonableness which you now condemn in them, would be 
exercised h-^ you. Deny it if you can; but if you admit it, then 
we call upon you to remember the Golden Rule in all your 
actions towards the sons of toil on whom you are dependent 
as well as they on you; and in the power of your wealth, and 
the advantages of your superior education, diligently seek, 
and when you find, put in practice some plan or principle — 
certainly existing somewhere in the arcana of natural law — by 
which ji^z/r interest and theirs may work together in coopera- 
tive harmony, and by which you, and they, and the whole 
world, may alike be blessed. 

But asid.e from the question as to the right or wrong in- 
volved in these conditions, or as to the parties upon whom the 
responsibility for any of the noted disorders may justly be 
placed, the grave and serious facts continue to haunt us on 
every side — that there is still a vast amount of poverty, des- 
titution, ignorance and suffering among the laboring classes 
for tvJdch others besides themselves are more or less., if ?iot wholly, re- 
sponsible, and for the removal of which some effective measures 
should be sought and put in operation. At the very moment 
these lines are being written, there are probably seventy-five 
thousand stalwart men in the single city of New York, who 
are out of employment, and suffering, with their families, for 
the commonest necessaries of life; and if our estimate should 
be made to include the whole country, this number would 
probably amount to millions. Nor do we include in this count 
the tens of thousands of females, careworn, haggard, exhausted 
and consumptive, who through pain and weariness are toiling 
with their needles or at their sewing machines, from early 



l82 THE END OF THE AGES. 

morn till late at night, for a few pitiful dimes, scarcely suffi- 
cient to keep the feeble life-currents from stagnating in their 
bodies. Without hope, without joy, with no pleasant sur- 
roundings, what wonder that so many of them should be willing 
to sell their virtue for the temporary comforts which a pure 
life ceases to afford ? The sighs- and prayers of those who 
bear these burdens and suffer these privations, meeting no 
adequate response from the wisdom of the wise, or 
the stores of the wealthy, are ascending to God who 
will hear, and in His own time will answer them, even 
though it be to the dismay of thousands of his own 
unfaithful servants. In these sighs and prayers we 
hear the voice of Humanity in labor, groaning in pain 
to be delivered of the Neiu Idea, and the new political and 
social state. 

But there is a still more fearful side to this picture of 
woe — that which is pregnant with the fires of infernal pas- 
sion. The exasperations of these workers without work; 
the impatience of these starving victims of insufficient 
wages; and the lust for indiscriminate plunder concealed 
in the breasts of the thousands who compose the lowest 
and naturally most disloyal class of human beings, are even 
now only repressed by the clubs of the policemen and the 
bayonets of the militia; and what may we expect when the 
accumulating force behind these barriers shall become so 
great as to sweep them all away ? Capitalists, thinkers, states- 
men (if we have any), wise men of the nation, take warn- 
ing! Learn a lesson from the French Revolution of 1793, 
which deluged Paris in blood; from the Communistic war 
in Paris in 1871, the blackened scars of which have not 
yet been obliterated from that fair city; from the July 
riots in our own country in 1877, and the agony and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 183 

destruction they spread over the land, involving alike the 
interests of all classes.* 

Know that communism — not indigenous to this soil, thank 
God, but an importation from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium 
and other European States — is more rife and rampant among 
us than ever before, holding its secret conclaves, with a 
membership bound together by horrible oaths; instilling its 
poison stealthily into the whole mass of the laboring popula- 
tion; holding its conventions composed of delegates from 
every city and large town, laying its plans and preparing for — 
What? Well, what do you suppose, reader, unless it be for 
some grand coup which will establish communism as triumphant 
over the ruins of existing institutions? Their leading men, 
taught in the conclaves of their fraternity in Europe, are in 
their own way, organizers, are fighters, are brave and desper- 
ate, and they know well how to make tools even of those 
workingmen's societies which do not profess, but rather abhor. 



*How these disorders affect the interests of all classes may be learned from 
the following brief abstract from the annual message of Governor Hartranft's 
to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, of 1878. He says: "The great question of 
the day is the so called conflict of labor and capital. * * * * As mentioned 
above, the State has paid for the suppression of labor troubles an average of 
over $104,000 annually for the past eight years, and even a casual examination 
of the annals will show that there has been a growing frequency and breadth of 
trouble and violence and consequently a corresponding increase in the expenses 
of their suppression. The direct loss to capital, in the destruction of property 
has been very great, while the loss from enforced inaction has been enormous. 
The loss of wages to the working class has amounted to many millions of dol- 
lars, and habits of individual independence and thrift have given way to a 
demoralizing dependence upon organizations. The antagonism of class has 
been a fruitful source of crime. The large sums expended in the detection and 
conviction of the perpetrators of these outrages must therefore be placed to the 
same account. 



184 THE END OF THE AGES. 

their principles. Already have they displayed the red flag in 
the streets of New York and other cities on more than one 
occasion, and their existence among us, therefore, is not a 
myth. 

The July riots of 1877 were said to be the result of a pre- 
mature explosion of a mine which was intended to be fired 
some three or four months after that date, when all prepara- 
tions were expected to be mature. Whether this be true or 
untrue, it is impossible for a reasoning man not to suppose that, 
taught by the failure of the first attempt, their next effort will 
seek to avoid the mistakes then committed, and will be so 
planned and organized as to insure a far nearer approximation 
to success. And though they will, of course, miserably fail in 
the end, who does not see that by a short triumph of one 
fortnight, they might cause more destruction of life and prop- 
erty, and inflict a more lasting disaster upon the country — and 
upon all the interests of all classes — than came of the four 
years of our civil war? * 

That such a coup is imminent, and will certainly come unless 



* "About 400 Social Democrats and workingmen held a meeting yester- 
day to give expression to their views on several public matters. A gray- 
haired old man named West, reminded his hearers that the time for words had 
passed, and the workingmen must now strike blows. The capitalists had con- 
spired to crush the laborer to the dust. By the Constitutional Amendment 
they wanted to take away his vote; by another bill they sought to deprive him 
of the right to freedom of speech, and of bearing arms. But the workingmen 
must not and would not, submit to these humiliations. Let them organize 
themselves in every election district, not only for the purpose of voting, but 
also for fighting. Let the workmen form a regiment in every Assembly dis- 
trict and a battalion in every Congressional district and defeat their enemies, 
not only with ballots but with bullets. The workmen were becoming too 
apathetic. They must see some burning and killing to arouse them to a sense 
of their rights." — New York Tribune, Feb. 25, 187S. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 1 85 

its germinal causes are removed by tlie purification of our rot- 
tea politics and the improvement of the condition of the labor- 
ing masses, seems to us a moral certainty. The temporary 
revival of business may postpone it but not avert it as a 
finality. Fellow Americans, shall we, lulled by the siren cry 
of "peace and safety," continue to drift supinely onward to- 
wards this catastrophe? If we can find no remedy for our 
political corruptions, no means for the correction of our social 
injustices, inequalities and crimes, no door of escape from the 
dangers which threaten the subversion of our whole system of 
society, then let us at least pray God to send us quickly the 
iron heeled despot, call him usurping President, King, Em- 
peror, or by whatever name, to load us with gyves and lash us 
with scorpions until we shall be willing to apply our hearts un- 
to that wisdom which will show the easy, peaceful and certain 
way out of all these difficulties, and which will prepare us to 
set out anew on the great work which God has for us to per- 
form as a nation — a work far more grand and noble than any 
which has been performed by our fathers. 

But No; despots can not live in this country. Our air is 
unhealthy to them. They breathe it, and die of asphyxia. 
We have nothing to hope from that quarter. Neither have we 
anything to fear except from that most cruel of all despotisms, 
the despotism of the insensate mob. We will then, with hope 
and confidence in the result, again post our advertising billet 
by the sides of the highways and byways of public thought: 

WANTED— A new National Idea. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

IS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REFORM POSSIBLE WITHOUT ORGANIC 

CHANGE? 

Existing evils not merely functional, but organic; Our primary movements in 
politics; Nominations necessary to elections; Caucuses and primary 
elections; Norninations generally controlled by selfish tricksters; No remedv 
for this under present system; Bad nominations practically more than half 
disfranchise good citizens; Ultimate rootlets of government in the rum 
shop; Foulness and disease thence to the whole body; The national ship in 
the trough of the sea; Citizens' Associations ineffective as means of reform 
and why? — The question heading the chapter, answered, No! — How of 
social qyWsI — Effects of preaching virtue; Organic instrumentalities neces- 
sary; Some reformers and their theories; Plausible, but will not work; Hope 
of finding our way out. 

n^HE irregularities and shortcomings in the workings of our 
-*- political and social machinery, as noted in previous 
chapters, make it evident that we cannot go onward and ac- 
complish our noble mission as a great republican nation, 
without some very radical reforms. It becomes a serious 
question, therefore, whether the necessary reforms can be 
made without remodeling in some suitable way, the whole 
organic machinery of our working politics, if not more or less, 
the very structure of our government itself, and the introduc- 
tion of a new spirit and aim in our political and social life. 

If the evils we have already noted in a general way were 
merely functional irregularities incident to a temporary de- 
rangement of the system, they might, perhaps, by judicious 
doctoring be cured. But the very life-blood of the body 



THE END OF THE AGES. 187 

politic and social appears to be poisoned at its fountains, and 
hence all the tissues and organs formed and recuperated by its 
nutritive transformations, must, of necessity, partake of the 
disease. To prove the correctness of this statement we now 
propose a brief review of our Primary Movements in Politics — 
that is, of the very first steps which we take to fill the ofifices 
of government; to which point we have, as yet, referred only 
indirectly and indefinitely. 

Boasting, as we do, of the "freedom" of the elective fran- 
chise as the greatest "privilege" of the American citizen, we 
are apt to overlook certain conditions which often render the 
freedom of the ballot box practically nugatory. It is of course 
true that of all persons deemed suitable for any particular ofifice 
we may single out for ourselves, and vote for the one we may 
prefer; but if all voters would act only on this simple rule, it is 
next to certain that no one would ever receive the votes of a 
majority of the whole people and be elected. It is necessary 
that there should be some pre-arrangement by which the 
people, sacrificing their individual preferences, should cast 
their votes only for a very few previously nominated candi- 
dates, for only on such condition would it be at all likely that 
any particular candidate could ever receive a majority of all 
the votes cast. One of the incidents of such an arrangement 
is, that when the simple-minded and unsophisticated citizen 
goes to the polls on election day, two sets of ballots are put 
into his hands by the henchmen of the two grand parties, on 
either of which the names of the candidates o'i one or the other 
of the parties are printed; and for the names on the ticket of 
his own party, whether he approves or disapproves them, he is 
obliged to vote if he wishes to contribute to the success of his 
party, or even if he wishes his vote to count for anything 
whatsoever. 



l88 THE END OF THE AGES. 

By whom are these candidates put in nomination ? and by 
what process ? They are usually nominated by the influence, 
direct or indirect, of the candidates themselves, and those 
whom they have the art to bind to their interests. In rural 
districts, where the smallest amount of corruption prevails, 
the process is by what is called the "general caucus," which, 
however, so far from being always general, is often a very 
one-sided and private affair indeed. Some person is led by his 
ambition or greed for official emoluments to aspire to the 
office of sheriff of the county, member of the State Legislature, 
Representative to Congress, or to some other position in the 
gift of voters. All at once he becomes -unusually polite to 
everyone, bowing to them as he meets them in the public 
highways, chatting familiarly with them at the village store, 
treating them at the tavern, etc. After awhile he selects from 
the friends he has thus made, a few of the most shrewd and 
capable workers, imparts to them the secret of his aspirations, 
and, perhaps, still farther binding them to his interests by the 
promise of political favors on condition of his election, sets 
them to "talking up" his name as "one of the nicest and finest 
of men." As the time for holding a nominating caucus ap- 
proaches, these electioneering tools go around among all those 
who have been heard to speak of Mr. So and So, as a "first 
rate fellow," and say, "Now there is to be a caucus of our 
party at the village tavern on such a day or evening, and I 
wish you to go up and put in your voice for the nomination of 
Mr. So and So for such and such an office." Of course it can 
be done five cases out of six, by such a preliminary oiling of 
the nominating machinery- — not because Mr. So and So is a 
worthy man (he may be the most accomplished trickster and 
rogue in the district) but because he knows how to pull the 
wires, and to seduce or bribe, or hire a few others to help him 



THE END OF THE AGES. 189 

pull them. The voice of the caucus thus being in his favor, 
of however few or many it may have been composed, and how- 
ever secretly or publicly it may have been held, his name goes 
forth as the "regular nominee" of his party, and the votes of 
all loyal devotees of the party are demanded and most gen- 
erally cast in his favor. 

In cities the machinery of primary movements in politics is 
usually a little more complicated. As in New York and 
Brooklyn, for example, each of the great parties has its 
ward associations, and its general committees composed of 
delegates from these associations; and a similar arrangement, 
with slight modifications, is observed in most, if not all, other 
great cities of the Union. The general rule is, that the ward 
association shall nominate directly all candidates for ward 
officers; that it shall elect delegates to meet in convention 
with similarly elected delegates from other ward associations 
within an Asserobly, Senatorial or Congressional district, to 
nominate candidates for those respective offices; that it shall 
elect delegates to meet in convention with other delegates 
within a specified district, to appoint common delegates to a 
State convention to nominate a governor and other state 
officers, this State convention also, every four years appoint- 
ing still ulterior delegates to attend a United States conven- 
tion, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President 
of the United States. 

Now this system has a fair appearance upon the outside, and 
if it could be considered only in its higher forms of the State 
and the National convention, irrespective of the question as 
to how these were originated and constituted, it would not, 
perhaps, be subject to any very serious objection. But when 
we look down into its primal and elemental stratifications, we 
soon find that there is an outside power which not only rules 



190 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the rule makers, but which dominates or evades even the rules 
that are made. The by-laws of the ward associations, and 
the regulations of the general committee, are not legal statutes 
that can be enforced by the magistracy, but their correct in- 
terpretation and enforcement is ever liable to be set aside by 
the despotism of the fist, the bludgeon, or the rowdy brawl. 

And this is the way the thing works : One person aspires to be 
elected as alderman or supervisor, or member of the State 
Legislature or to some other office. He seeks an interview 
with some other artfuland influential politician of the ward or 
district— generally one not very friendly to him, that he may 
disarm opposition. He broaches the question of party and 
personal interests, and they repair to the most convenient 
liquor saloon, and quietly discuss matters over the mutual 
"schooner" of beer. "You tickle me and I'll tickle you," is 
the substance of what passes. "I want a certain office and you 
want a certain other; you exert your infiuence to have me nom- 
inated and elected, and then, by the increased power and 
prestige I will have, I will work for you at the next or some 
subsequent primary and general election; and your ambition, 
as well as mine, shall be gratified." 

Matters being thus, in the common phrase, "fixed up" be- 
tween them, other influential political workers are gradually 
and cautiously led into the secret, and their favors are se- 
cured by promises conditional on the event of the election. 
The ' 'pipes" are then laid and the wires are so adjusted that they 
maybe pulled at convenient moments, exerting forces at points 
that may be most effectively subordinated to the general plan. 
The dominant clique of the party — that which holds the poll 
book — and the inspectors of the primary election, must now 
be conciliated. An estimate must be made of the number of 
votes that will be likely to be polled against us, and provisions 



THE END OF THE AGES. I9I 

must be made beforehand to overcome all adverse majorities. 
If the nomination in question is to be made by a delegation, 
we must hoodwink the citizens of our own party who are not 
politicians, by placing tivo good names — those of their friends — 
to three that are pledged to us, on our printed ticket. The 
citizens will vote the ticket for the sake of those two good 
names; and the delegation being thus secured our three men 
to their two will be all we need to secure the nomination. But 
if there is a doubt as to how an actual majority of resident 
citizens entitled to a vote may stand, we must bring in the 
"boys" friendly to us from other wards, and have them vote 
on assumed names feigned to be on the roll, or on the names 
of dead men, or on the names of others not present and who are 
known to be opposed to us; and if, after all, there be a doubt 
of our success, we must devise some trick by which we can, un- 
observed, thrust a handful of ballots into the box. 

By such tricks and manoeuvers, with the accessories of jostl- 
ing, hooting, pushing and scuffling with a view to disgust de- 
cent men and keep them away from the polls, these cunning, bad 
men usually succeed in securing their nomination to office, 
while far better men than themselves as frequently fail, sim- 
ply because they cannot employ the detestable means necessary 
to success. And when an intelligent, patriotic and well mean- 
ing citizen — ^the lover of his country and of humanity — goes to 
the polls on the day of general election, and finds these names 
on the ticket of his party, placed there by fraud and violence, 
and that his only alternative is to either vote that ticket or 
virtually cast his vote away, he feels that in that very fact he 
is more than half disfranchised, and when he adds to this the 
fact that frauds and ballot box stuffing and false counting are 
still, at the general election, liable to take place in the interest 
of designing corruptionists and constructive thieves, his heart 



192 THE END OF THE AGES. 

sickens, and he feels that the vaunted '■'■mestiyfiable privilege ' of 
the American citizen to the use ofthe ballot box, isbutasnare 
and a trap and a stumbling block, and that this is a republican 
government far more in na?7ie than in reality. 

Here, then, we find the ultimate rootlets and spongioles of 
the great tree of American Government extending deep down 
into the rum shop, and spreading abroad, far and wide into 
the lowest slums of society. What wonder, then, that cor- 
ruption should run through every vein and artery of our body 
politic, and saturate its very brain and heart with foulness and 
disease. And when, in addition to all this, we consider that 
we are now, and have been since the enactment of the four- 
teenth and fifteenth constitutional amendments, without the 
shadow of a great national Idea or aim — drifting like a huge 
dismantled ship in the trough of the sea, with the teredo bor- 
ing into her planks — what wonder that we are going from bad 
to worse, and from worse to still worse, with the yawning grave 
open to receive us and all our national hopes. 

The question then recurs. Is effective reform possible with- 
out organic change ? Good men have seen these evils — have 
seen their tendencies as necessarily fatal, if not stopped, and 
have earnestly sought a remedy. Recognizing the fact that 
the evils of our politics originate almost wholly in the cau- 
cusses and primary elections, they have attended them, and 
urged other good and honest citizens to do the same. They 
have soon found, to their chagrin, that the only way possible 
under the existing methods of these primaries, to overcome 
dishonest, cunning and violent cliques, was by the exercise of a 
still greater degree of dishonesty, cunning and violence, which, 
being honest and order-loving citizens themselves, they could 
not possibly do. So turning with disgust from these fountains 
of corruption, they have formed themselves into Citizens' 



THE END OF THE AGES. 193 

Associations, thinking thus to be able to furnish suitable con- 
ditions for the suffrages of the people. The consequence has 
been, that the moment they began to show any signs of success 
in their efforts, their membership has been packed, and their 
machinery captured, by the same class of hungry office seekers 
whom they had sought to circumvent; and the old state of 
things is thus re-inaugurated. 

What now shall be done ? The feeble cry goes forth; "Vote 
for the best men who are nominated, irrespective of party;" 
and a few have done this, yet with apparently very little mel- 
iorating effect. And so the evil has gone on from year to year 
and from decade to decade; and so our legislative, executive 
and, to a lamentable extent, even judicial officers, have served 
themselves and their political friends, rather than the people and 
the government whom they are sworn to serve. And so, the 
business of buying and selling legislation is still in a flourish- 
ing condition; and so official peculation and constructive rob- 
bery still continue to curse the land; and so, an emphatic 
"No" is returned as the answer to the question, "Can 
eft'ective political reform be accomplished without organic 
change ? " 

The same question may be asked concerning unfortunate 
and disordered conditions not necessarily included within the 
sphere of politics, such as ignorance, drunkenness, prostitution, 
theft, the frauds and injustices of trade and commerce, the 
conflicts between labor and capital, and the general inharmonies 
and antagonisms of all trades and professions — "Can effective 
reform of these be accomplished without organic change? " 
The most common answer that is given to this question is 
"Preach temperance, chastity, justice, honesty, charity, kind- 
ness and brotherly love, to the people — convert them all to 
these principles, and the evils complained of wnll necessarily 

13 



194 THE END OF THE AGES. 

cease." Yes, so they will; but how many ages, think ye, 
would have to elapse before the world could thus be converted 
in detail? — -especially while there are so many hungry stomachs 
and shivering limbs and badly organized, diseased, poverty 
stricken, and dilapidated frames standing in the way to turn 
the thoughts of men quite in another direction. Let these 
virtues be diligently preached; great good may thus be done to 
people as individuals \ but while the "enemy" is ever active 
in sowing tares in this moral field, and while vice and crime, 
like weeds and Canada thistles, are so fearfully prolific in ever- 
renewed growths from the germ, nothing more than mitigatory 
results as affecting the great Body of humanity, could be ex- 
pected from this process of individual indoctrination. And 
such results by this process, have been accomplished, and 
will be, while these wretched conditions pervading the great 
mass of mankind, will remain much the same, until they can 
be changed by some potent influence that can be brought to 
bear upon cooperative masses as such, reforming and regen- 
erating the very germinal conditions in which human char- 
acter has its origin. 

Perceiving the truth here set forth, many noble minds have 
arisen during the past three-quarters of a century, and have 
projected ingenious plans of combined and cooperative social 
action, each of which, having its merits as well as demerits, 
may be studied with profit. Chief among these was that bold 
speculator, that broad and grand thinker, that profound though 
it would seem not fully rounded philosopher, Charles Fourier. 
Contemporary with him and proclaiming somewhat different 
theories, was St. Simon, and afterwards came Robert Owen 
and his son Robert Dale; and still later came Andrew Jackson 
Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer; Albert Brisbane (a disciple of 
Fourier), Samuel Leavitt and others of more or less 



THE END OF THE AGES. I95 

conspicuousness — all theorizing and laboring in different ways 
and by different specialties for the one common object — there- 
organization of society upon the basis of reciprocal justice. 
But while profoundly honoring the philanthropic impulses and 
ingenious thoughts of these laborers in the field of social reform 
we cannot help saying that their theories remind us of those 
ingenious machines which are sometimes constructed by me- 
chanical mathematicians, for the production of perpetual mo- 
tion — plausible to look at, with balances, fly wheels, oscillators 
all polished and shining, but open to just one small objection, 
and that is, they would not go. 

The conclusion of the whole matter then, seems to be; That 
effective political and social reform is not only impossible 
without organic change, but that such organic change must be 
something different from anything that has yet been proposed 
and tested. But reform we must have or political and social 
death lies in the path of our future. Such is the inexorable 
logic of the situation as reviewed in the last three or four 
chapters. Thinkers, philosophers, fellow-Americans — free 
yourselves from old prejudices and let your thoughts soar 
above their present dead level. Strive to find at least the ideal 
of that bridge that will conduct us in safety over the dread 
chasm between the present and the future; and when you have 
found it, work — work for your lives, and build it firm and 
strong. But think and work in hope. There never was yet a 
way into a swamp when there was not a way out of it. And 
that way we shall yet find, with God's help. Fear not. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

IS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC THE HIGHEST 
FORM OF GOVERNMENT THAT IS POSSIBLE ? 

The Sphynx riddle; The question to be candidly met; The force that under- 
lies all progress; God is "knowable" in degrees; Natural gradations 
of society to be traced: I., Savagism — Fetichism — -How originated; Its true 
side; Its superstitious side; II., Barbarism — Polytheism or Manitouism; 
Tribal relations; How originated; III., Despotism — Sovereignism — How 
originated ; A God simply of power ; hence a government of power ; I V. , The 
Crude or Demi-Republic — Jehovism — A God of Justice and Mercy; 
Government after this type; V., The Ascending OR Progressive Re- 
public — Paternism; (Christ's Teachings; God the Universal Father; 
Union with him — Many members of one Body; Christ preached to 
spirits in prison; Church also descended into hells of the dark ages; It 
works from bottovi to top of whole scale of humanity; Bottom depths 
reached in middle of cycle; Gradual emergence thence; Gradations up- 
ward; Return of Husbandman to his Vineyard; Second coming of 
Christ — "Paternism" complemented by Fraternism — Infidelity organizes 
nothing; It merely disintegrates; Foundation of the Fifth order, ''The 
Ascending or Progressive Reptib lie \ VI. The Universal AND Harmonic 
Republic; VII., The Spiritual Commune — Communism possible only 
at the bottom and top ends of the scale — Types of the Commune in the 
past and present. 

TN the midst of our efforts to solve the riddle which our 
-I political and social sphynx propounds, and knowing that 
failure will entail the penalty of being swallowed by the mon- 
ster, the mind turns in desperation to a preliminary question 
which will be startling to Americans generally, and especially 
to those of the ultra conservative type. Still we must meet it 
fearlessly, candidly, thoughtfully, and with all the resources 



THE END OF THE AGES. I97 

of reason, science and philosophy which the advanced intelli- 
gence of the age brings to our hands. That question is: 
Have li'e any reason to suppose that our prese7it form of governmoit 
— the last, and we believe the highest form ever adopted by a great 
nation — is yet the highest that is possible for huttian beings on earth ? 
Or on the other hand, is it not extremely probable that, in the 
scale of eternal evolutions there are engermed still higher 
and nobler forms, to be developed in the future as they may 
be required to meet the enlarged capacities and correspond- 
ingly enlarged wants of mankind ? 

To answer this question properly, we must interrogate 
historical facts, self-evident principles, laws, analogies and 
correspondence, and deduce those conclusions only which are 
logically necessary from given and acknowledged premises. 
By thus tracing the conditions of humanity and the forms of 
society from their lowest stages through all their successive 
gradations of development up to the present, while observing 
the laiv of the series and the numeral relations of its parts, we 
may predict the next stage with something like a mathematical 
certainty; but this, of course, is said only of its general fea- 
tures, leaving out details. 

In entering upon the course of serial statements here pro- 
posed, it should be premised — That in order for human society 
to be able to advance from any lower to a higher stage of de- 
velopment and refinement, some conception, some ideal, some 
fixed faith or knowledge of some central and centralizing 
power, principle or intelligence higher than man in his present 
state, is absolutely necessary. This Higher, in its highest con- 
ceivable ideal, whether of the infantile or mature intelligence of 
man, is that which in our language is known as God. And 
however imperfectly this power and intelligence may be con- 
ceived by any people, it is the center of inoral gravitation to 



190 THE END OF THE AGES. 

that people, lifting its aspirations, quickening its conscience, 
and governing all progress and elevation. Without such a 
center of moral gravitation, whatever be the specific concep- 
tion entertained of it, human nature, as we hold it self-evident, 
would ever remain in a state of chaos and wild savagism — even 
as the physical universe would ever remain chaotic if there 
were no center of physical gravitation. While we admit that 
the most exalted archangel must even fall infinitely short of 
knowing God in His fullness and perfection, we do most em- 
phatically dissent from Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the 
necessarily "unknowable," whether applied to God or any- 
thing else; and on the contrary we affirm that, after the cogni- 
tion of surrounding objects in nature, and of their simplest 
powers to act beneficially or destructively on the human or- 
ganism, the intuition of a superior and overruling Power and 
Intelligence, and of man's accountability thereto, is, so far as 
it goes, as natural, true and absolute as any other intuition 
whatsoever — indeed it is a part of the normally constructed 
man himself. So far then, even the savage knows God and 
knows Him, too, as absolutely correctly as the highest angel. 
And it is only when man begins to speculate or imagine, or 
even reason concerning such obscure, ulterior attributes of 
that overshadowing presence as are not patent to his natural 
intuitions, that he is liable to run into such errors and super- 
stitions as have characterized, more or less, every stage of de- 
velopment in the religious ideas of the world, and as have, 
confessedly too often, obstructed rather than promoted the 
elevation of humanity. 

Starting out, therefore, with the distinct and established 
aphorism, that progress in human society, and even national 
existence itself for any great length of time, would be impossi- 
ble without the recognition of the existence of some overrulins: 



THE END OF THE AGES. 199 

power and intelligence — we will now, as briefly as possible, 
trace the inseparably connected developments of the idea of a 
God, and the correlated forms of human society, from the low- 
est to those which now exist, so that, reasoning thence de- 
ductively and correspondentially, we may be able to catch some 
glimpses of that which is to be. 

I. SAVAGISM RELIGION, FETICHISM. 

The first and lowest condition of humanity which the reason- 
ing faculty pictures, and which prehistoric mementoes demon- 
strate, is that of wild, uncultivated, roaming individualism. 
This is commonly designated by the term Savagism; but by 
that word we now define a condition lower than that of the 
North American Indian who exists in loosely organized tribal 
relations. The best representations, perhaps, of the condition 
of those primeval human inhabitants of the earth, is in that of 
the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru, before the advent of the 
Incas, as described by Garcillaso de la Vega, or that of 
the aborigines of Australia; or of the wandering Bush- 
men of South Africa — without art, without restraint by 
customs or laws, and each one acting for himself to 
the extent of his power, even to feeding upon the flesh of his 
weaker fellow man. The hardships, dangers and sufferings of 
these persons, continued from generation to generation, tend 
gradually to promote thoughtfulness, meditation, and a crav- 
ing for the protection of some power that can aid and defend 
them. Finally some one among the number, more meditative, 
more intuitional and more impressible than the rest, perhaps 
casually seats himself upon a rock in the solitudes of the forest 
with the zephyrs playing among the overhanging branches, 
making music which lulls all the faculties to harmony and 



200 THE END OF THE AGES. 

repose, when he seems to hear the voice of some invisible intel- 
ligence speaking within him. He is thrilled with emotions of 
a>we and reverence, mingled with the fears which originate in 
his own timid nature. These experiences become more dis- 
tinct as the inner sensibilities become more developed by re- 
peated experience, until he as firmly knows of the existence of 
this invisible and intelligent power as he knows of the exist- 
ence of the winds and the sunshine. Hence it is the natural 
desire of this man to form an alliance with that power, to se- 
cure its favor, to avoid its disapprobation, and to follow its 
leadings. 

Here, then, is the first and rudimental conception of a God, 
and so far as it goes, it is as correct as any other human con- 
ception. Here then, with the germ and infancy of the human 
race, we have the germ of all true theology and of the force of all 
true progress, whatever may be the successive stages of evolu- 
tion of the same throughout the cycles of the earth's subse- 
quent history, and even throughout the ascending spheres of 
the heavens above. 

But these primeval minds do not rest here. The impression- 
ist who received the first distinct stamp of overbrooding 
divinity upon his inner being, and who was, in that, the first 
to be elevated above the grade of the intellectual brute — or if 
not he, some one whom he has indoctrinated in the same 
thought — is not content with that truth as a supersensible and 
spiritual ideal, and so he begins to exercise his imagination as 
to what material form may have been chosen by it as its visible 
clothing. Some day while musing in solitude upon this ques- 
tion, his eye, perhaps, casually falls upon the form of a huge 
serpent lurking by the side of his path. The awe with which 
he is thrilled is, to his crude perceptions, so similar to that 
with which the sense of the overbrooding invisible presence 



.THE END OF THE AGES. 20I 

had previously inspired him, that he does not distinguish the 
difference. He thinks he has found his God in the form of 
that serpent; that serpent therefore, or something else of like 
awe-inspiring nature that his mind may have fallen upon, be- 
comes his fetich; and thus the theology of this grade of 
humanity is called Fetichism. And herein, on the other hand, 
do we find also the germ of all superstition and idolatry, with 
its restrictive influence upon human progress, which has had 
its multifarious developments at different times, and which in its 
more specious forms is as rife at the present day as it has been 
at any previous age of the world. 

II. BARBARISM RELIGION, POLYTHEISM OR MANITOUISM. 

The development of this second grade most probably oc- 
curred in the following manner: Breathed upon by invisible in 
fiuences, numbers of persons in the first and germinal stage of 
humanitary evolution, may be supposed to have become more 
or less sensible of this overbrooding power, and these would 
speak of their experiences to each other. Gradually it would 
become evident that some of these impressionists, seers or 
prophets were siipe?'ior to others, and finally one would appear 
who, being unquestionably superior to all the rest, would, by 
the force of his character and the common consent of the rest, 
take the lead as the greatfetich man, or medicine man. Then his 
followers, gathering around him, and he, by common consent, 
acting as their prophet, priest, chief and father, the whole 
would assume the form of a Tribe, governed by common cus- 
toms, usages and laws of personal honor; and thus the first 
and lowest principles of Social Order would be inaugurated. 

While this process would be going on in one locality, nearly 
the same thing would be occurring among the people across the 



202 THE END OF THE AGES.. 

big river, on the other side of the high mountain, and in dis- 
tant locations set off by other geographical boundaries, unti' 
many distinct tribes would be formed. Each one of these 
tribes, and many subordinate individuals, would have ex- 
periences giving the idea of spiritual powers differing in grade 
and character from each other, and these being all recognized, 
constituted the foundations of a theology which has been 
known as Polytheism, or among the North American Indians, 
as Manitouism, or Spiritism, with a great Manitou or Spirit as 
leading the whole. It is this tribal relation, with its religion, 
that we here designate as Barbarism. 

III. DESPOTISM RELIGION, SOVEREIGNISM. 

This third grade of social evolution was brought about in 
this wise: These diverse tribes, by trenching frequently upon 
each other's territories and hunting grounds, and from other 
causes of mutual jealousy and antagonism, would often become 
embroiled in wars with each other, until by force of numbers 
or skill and prowess in battle, one tribe would stand forth as 
the unquestionable superior of the others. The chieftain of 
this tribe, still uniting in himself the several offices of prophet, 
priest and king, now arose to the conception of a supreme 
Divinity, who presided over the destinies of all the tribes and 
taught that it was the command of this Being that they should 
be united as one people, rendering common worship to himi 
and common allegiance to this chieftain whom he had ap- 
pointed to rule over them. 

No very distinct conception was as yet entertained concern- 
ing any moral attributes as belonging to the Deity. He was 
regarded as simply a Sovereign whose commands must be 
obeyed under severe penalties, and whose favor was to be pro- 
cured by religious rites and ceremonies. Believing that he held 



THE END OF THE AGES. 203 

his office by the will of the nation's God, the king at first, as 
a patriarch or father of a great national family, ruled the 
people unselfishly; and it was only after becoming proud and 
puffed up by successes and worldly greatness, that he assumed 
to himself honors as the earthly viceregent of God, and be- 
came rapacious and tyrannical. 

This third stage of humanitary and social evolutions, there- 
fore, inaugurates the first form of political society which 
answers to the idea of a JVatioti; and while we call it a despotism 
from its being subject to the will of one man, we call its re- 
ligion Sovereignisni from its main conception of Deity as a 
being simply of arbitrary /c«'^^.* 

IV. THE CRUDE OR DEMI-REPUBLIC— RELIGION, JEHOVISM. 

When, in course of time, the old monarchies of the East had 
degenerated into temporal and spiritual tyrannies, and had put 
forth many perverting and degrading notions concerning the 
supernal Power which rules the world, Abraham was called 
forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to be the progenitor of a new 
nation, led by new and still higher conceptions of the Divinity. 
As there is a natural overlapping of intervals between the third 
and fourth notes of the musical scale, so there was an over- 
lapping between this newly projected religious and political 
system, and the highest form of the old regime, represented 
in Egypt. Thus, the descendants of Abraham were consigned 



* The reader will please note, that we are here dealing only with the exoteric 
and popular development of the religious idea. The wonders of that secret lore 
which came professedly by inspiration into the minds of Magi and prophets, 
from the Eden period downward through thousands of years, and the monu- 
mental records of some of which remain to the present day, cannot be properly 
noticed within our present limits, or consistently with our main theme. 



204 THE END OF THE AGES. 

to a long- pupilage in Egypt, from which they were ultimately 
led forth by one who had been "brought up in all the wisdom 
and learning of the Egyptians," and who, receiving a still su- 
perior wisdom by influx from above, taught that Jehovah 
Adonai was not only a mere Sovereign, but also a God possess- 
ing distinct ^^(^/'(^/attributes — -a God of justice, judgment, mercy 
and truth — a defender of the poor and innocent and a dis- 
penser of equity between the tribes and people. Under the 
ideal of individual and social life presented in the character 
and commands of such a God, the Israelitish people, on taking 
up their abode in Palestine, immediately resolved themselves 
into the form of a crude Republic^ in which they continued, ac- 
cording to the Usherian chronology, about four hundred 
years.* After the lapse of this period, internal disorders, 
mainly attributable to retrogression in the religious idea, had 
multiplied, and in the absence of that intelligence and public 
aspiration which could supply the conditions of progress to a 
still higher degree of religious and social life, the nation, much 
to the regret of good old Samuel, fell back again to Monarchy, 
and in later ages into vassalage to foreign powers. 

And so, although the Mosaic idea concerning God and his 
attributes, and the system of laws based upon the same, con- 
tained the moral elejueiits of a Crude Republic, the nation's 
history presents some practical deviations from this ideal, owing 
to the ignorance of the times, and to unfavorable surrounding 
conditions; while it must be admitted that in periods when 
this ideal was left to its full sway, it generated conditions of 
public justice and human equity which are scarcely exceeded 
in any of the analogous Crude Republics of this day. 



*From the Exodus from Egypt, 1491 B. C, to the death of Samuel, 1061 
B. C, 430 years. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 205 

V. THE ASCENDING OR PROGRESSIVE REPUBLIC RELIGION, PA- 

TERNISM. 

Near the end of the Jewish polity and ecclesiasticism, came 
a new teacher, who proclaimed doctrines concerning God and 
the consequent mutual relations of mankind, vastly higher 
than any which had been previously entertained, even if they 
were mystically involved in the old symbols and doctrines which 
have not received full embodiment in any form of civilization, 
even to this day. With him, God was indeed still the mys- 
terious overbrooding power; the intelligent, directing spirit; 
the Sovereign; the Judge and God of Justice, Mercy and 
Truth; but in addition to all those he was the Universal Father, 
kind and loving even to the unthankful and to the evil. It 
was said, by this teacher, to be God's will that all should come 
unto him, be conformed to his spiritual likeness, be at o?ie 
with him — that each should be a temple in which God's Spirit 
might dwell, and thus be complete, fully rounded, whole, or 
sound, which condition is expressed by the word "saved" or 
"salvation." The children of such a Being were called "breth- 
ren," as it was fitting that the offspring of one and the same 
common Father should be called, and not only was the exer- 
cise of mutual justice and brotherly love inculcated as the car- 
dinal rule of social ethics, but even love to enemies was enforced 
and the higher were told that they must be ministers and ser- 
vants of the lower. 

It was also an assertion of this exalted teacher, that he was 
in the Father and the Father in him, and thus that he and the 
Father were one; that on the other hand, he was spiritually in 
his true and faithful disciples, and they in him, and hence that 
he and they also were one, so that all together might be one 
with the Father; that they were therefore all members of a 



2o6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

mystic body of which he was the head and that all were mem- 
bers one of another in such sense that not one of them could 
suffer without the whole suffering with him; hence that each 
in his specific office should cooperate with all others for the 
common and reciprocal good of the whole, and at the same 
time for the good of the whole outside world — the latter to be 
ultimately evangelized also and united to the great Body or 
Commonwealth. 

The followers of this new religion were called "Christians," 
from the name of their master, Jesus Christ. This name, 
however, was not assumed from any coiiunand of the Master, but 
was adopted first at Antioch, some eight or nine years after 
his death. Hence also, still subsequently, came the name 
Christianity as designating the new doctrine. This name has 
been retained to this day; but if it had been designed to 
designate simply the distinctive principle of this new doctrine, 
the word '■^Patemism" would have been more expressive from 
its representation of God as the Universal Fathe7'. 

Now had the moral forces of this new faith been restricted 
to and concentrated upon an isolated nation or community, and 
been fully received and practised by the same, it would 
naturally have soon generated the form of a republic of a very 
high order. But from its expansive nature it could not be so 
restricted; and besides such was not its design. As we are 
told that Christ, after his physical crucifixion, descended into 
hell to preach to the spirits in prison, so his system of teach- 
ing, with its accompanying spirit and power, was destined to 
descend into the earthly hells of the savagisms, barbarisms, 
despotisms and effete hierarchies of the whole western world, 
that it might work like leaven in them all, and even from the 
very bottom to the top of the whole scale of humanity. To the 
simple it appealed in its simplicity, to the wise in its wisdom, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 207 

and to all with only such of its truths as they could understand 
and appropriate. It embraced in its great Catholic heart and 
intellect, whatever was true in any and all the previous forms 
of religious conception, from F'etichism upward. In passing 
through all the gradations of humanity, not even excepting the 
lowest, which it encountered in its onward flow through the 
dark ages, it presented all phases of truth, from simplest to 
most complex. Of course it had also to submit to be clothed 
with many superstitious creations of the darkened human 
imagination — just as the indefinite but true conception of the 
overbrooding power, during the infantile and immediately en- 
suing ages of the world, was clothed in the form of a serpent 
and with other gross idolatrous imagery. This was not the 
fault of Christianity, but of the darkness of the psychic atmos- 
pheres of mankind which absorbed and deflected its light, and 
often threw around it shadows of hideous and repulsive forms. 
It was about the middle of the cycle of 1764 years, discussed 
in preceding pages, when the barbarous nations of Europe had 
all been converted \.o formal 2.ndi noviinal christiajiity, with the 
spirit of the old heathenism still, for the most part, remaining 
— that the lowest depths of darkness and perversion were 
reached. Thence the intrinsic light of Christianity, no longer 
subject to accumulations of outside obscuring influences, began 
gradually to consume the darkness, and the interior potency of 
Christ's doctrines and principles began slowly, and at first al- 
most imperceptibly, to assume control over the current of moral 
and intellectual progress and to act more positively for the 
elevation and blessing of mankind. Then ensued also, as the 
ages flowed on, a succession of more pure and lofty concep- 
tions of Christian theology and ethics, corresponding some- 
what in their gradations of progress, to the transitions of the 
old world from Fetichism to Polytheism (now taking the form 



2o8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

of saint worship), and from that to Sovereignism (accompanied 
with the ideal of the viceregency of the pope); and from that 
to Jehovism or the worship of a God of distinct moral at- 
tributes, as held by the latter day reformers. 

But in its passage upward from the bottom of the scale of 
human conceptions, Christian theology and ethics, down to the 
period of 1764 (the end of the cycle, as before shown), had 
not attained to a gradation above the Jehovism of the Jews, 
even as inadequately understood by that people; and the spirit 
that animated the churches was more in consonance with the 
literal teachings of the Old Testament than of the New. It 
was taught in the creeds (and is held by many even to this 
day), that God is, indeed a being of justice and mercy, but 
that his "justice" is so mingled with retaliative vengeance as 
to require the endless, inconceivable and profitless torture of 
millions of his creatures; and that his "mercy" consists in his 
willingness to accept the vicarious sacrifice of his innocent son 
in substitution for the punishment of the guilty, in order that 
the latter may be saved. And by exercising "faith" in this 
last great doctrine — a cardinal one in their system — they sup- 
pose that they have received the atonement\ whereas they have 
not received the atonement, or at-one-m.twt^ at all unless they 
are at one with Christ, and with the Father, and thence with 
each other, and live a life accordingly. 

But the comparative freedom and elasticity of thought that 
began to be manifested after the year 1764, has wrought vast 
changes in the whole tone and spirit of Christian theology, 
while at the same time pouring upon the world great floods of 
the light of Science as'before shown. As a result of all this, 
it may safely be asserted, that since the days of the apostles, 
there never was a time when Christ and his teachings were so 
well understood as at present- — by the feiu if not the many. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 209 

The Master is beginning to appear again in the same light in 
which he appeared of old, in Palestine. The husbandman 
who departed and journeyed into a far country and through 
many dark ages, is returning again to his vineyard to receive 
the fruits thereof. And if, instead of looking for the visible 
coming of Christ in the literal clouds of heaven with the coin- 
cident fall of the literal stars, the opening of the literal graves, 
and the literal burning up of the world, etc. — all impossibili- 
ties in the literal sense — if, I say, instead of looking for 
these things, — Christian theologians would seek truth behind 
mere symbols and see in the current and most wonderful de- 
velopments of this age, the clear signs of his coming, "with all 
his holy angels" — nay, the commencement of that coming it- 
self; if they would understand that the Kingdom of God 
comes "not with outward observation" but is '•'"within-" if they 
would learn the true and really plain Christian philosophy of 
spiritual Unio?i with Christ, and through him with the Father, 
and with each other as mutually sympathizing members of the 
same grand Body; and if they would preach these things dili- 
gently and faithfully until the whole religious community be- 
came thoroughly pervaded with the sentiment — they would 
then do their share of the work, not merely of the only real 
personal salvation of men, but of laying the foundation of a new 
order of political and social life, and of a higher form of 
Government than has ever yet been known on earth. The uni- 
versal church thus rising up from the dark fogs of ignorance 
and barbarism into which she had descended to bring up her 
children, would be herself again; the religion of universal pa- 
ternism would for the first time crystallize into universal 
Fraternism, and even the kingdoms of this world would be- 
come the kingdom of Christ as was prophesied of old. * 

* Rev. xi. 15. 

14 



2IO THE END OF THE AGES. 

But we do not intend to convey the thought, that this vast 
change in the conditions of mankind can be wrought by any 
of the old forms of ecclesiasticism, either Catholic or Protestant. 
They have evidently finished their cycle, have become worn 
out and effete, and have lost their power to lead the world to 
higher stages of civilization. Lacking as they do both the 
ideals and the impelling moral force of such advancement, they 
may be expected to pass away. What we are now to look for, 
and to welcome to our hearts with joy, is a New Church — the 
New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, the promised Comforter 
and "Spirit of Truth" which will lead into all truth (John xvi. 
7-13), and whose advent, as that of a "new heaven" will be 
accompanied with that of a "new earth" wherein dwelleth 
righteousness. 

But we do not entertain the impracticable theory that all or 
even the majority of mankind, will necessarily have to be made 
Christians in any sense before this new order of political so- 
ciety can be instituted. It is, however, abundantly demon- 
strated from the history of the past, as well as from the very 
nature of things, that the organizing principle and the formal 
type of the organization itself in any stage of political or social 
evolution, must be furnished by the domi7iant religious life and phil- 
osophy of the tif?ie. Infidelity organizes nothing. It never has 
organized anything beyond a temporary association for ag- 
gression, for self-defence, or for the pursuit of selfish profits or 
pleasures. Its great work, on the other hand, is to disinte- 
grate, to divide, and to egotize. There never was an atheistic 
nation, and never can be. So if at this age a new great or- 
ganization of human society is required, we must necessarily 
depend upon the highest religious sentiment and philosophy, 
whether that has taken form in few or many minds, to furnish 
the type, the spirit and the working life of it. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 211 

We have indeed before seen that Roman Catholicism after 
the year 1524, and Protestantism after 1764, lost power to 
lead civilization. We have also seen that this was because, 
at those periods respectively, they had worked out their 
mission as leaders of civilization. We have seen also that 
the period succeeding 1764, up to this time and a little beyond, 
is a period of transition and of preparation. And now that 
Christianity is emerging from the darkness of the ages through 
which she was obliged to pass in order to bring up the rear 
guards of humanity to the standard of these times; now that 
her teachings are appearing again in something like the pris- 
tine purity in which they originally fell from the lips of the 
Master and his apostles; now that she is receiving new illus- 
trations by demonstrations and outpouring of the spirit from 
heaven and is clothed with the powerful accessories of modern 
science — she is already beginning to furnish, and as she puts 
on the form of the new Church, she will furnish still more per- 
fectly, not only to an isolated community or nation, but to all 
Christendom, the type, the spirit, and the working life of a 
new political and social state, vastly higher than any which has 
existed in the past. 

Of the details of a system that would practically carry out 
these suggestions we hope to speak in subsequent pages; but 
this we will now say by way of anticipation — That it must be 
a Body Politic embracing all the principles of the body individ- 
ual; that it must have many members, of different offices, all 
held together by naturally indissoluble bonds, and all cooperat- 
ing for the good of the body and of its members in particular; 
and it must be so constructed that the interest of one will be 
the interest of all; and that the interest of the Body as a 
whole, will be the interest of each one of its members. 

This will be the Fifth gradation in the evolutions of human 



212 THE END OF THE AGES. 

society, which we have nominally designated as "-The Ascend- 
ing or Progressive Republic.'' 

But our scale is not yet complete. There ought, according 
to the law of the Sevenfold Series, to be yet two more grada- 
tions. But these, at present, can be of little interest to the 
reader except as prophetic shadows of the future, and we shall 
sketch them but briefly as the conception of them arises from 
the consideration of the law in the case. 

The Sixth Stage looms up before us in the future, as the 
Universal and Harmonic Republic, or the organization of all 
nations together as one Grand Nation, on the same harmonic 
plan — with local autonomies, from the grand whole to 
specific nations, and thence down to provinces and the smallest 
municipalities and townships — all bound together by cords 
of sympathy radiating from a common ideal center, intervolv- 
ing and interacting with each other in a manner corresponding 
to the intermovements and reciprocations of the innumerable 
bodies, great and small, of the astronomical system. Then 
there will be an international Congress to adjust all local 
controversies. Then the nations shall beat their swords into 
ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and learn 
war no more; and then mankind will know and love each other 
universally. 

The Seventh Stage will be the Spiritual Commune. Let 
not the reader shrink from this much abused word. Yes, 
Communism is not only engermed in the possibilities of 
human nature, but is contained in the arcana of an eternal 
law. Our conception of the true Commune, however, differs 
very widely from that of the intemperate agitators who are 
now disturbing society with their crude and subversive doc- 
trines. Our thought is, that never on earth can the true com- 
mune embrace any other than the most advanced classes of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 213 

mankind. In its essential nature, it is the marriage of Love 
and Wisdom; of Heaven and Earth; of God and Humanity. 
Considered in this light it will practically exemplify such 
passages in the New Testament as these: '■'■All things are 
yours; whether Paul or Appollos, or Cephas, or the world, or 
life, or death, or things present, or things to come — all are 
yours, and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." "He that 
overcome'th shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and 
he will be my son" etc. This will be the annihilation of all 
evil selfishness, and at the same time the immense expansion 
of selfhood by clothing it with all other selfhoods, and all 
other things BSparts of itself; while all other selfhoods in turn 
will have the same resources of the same riches. Each man 
in that condition will own the whole earth, and even the sun, 
moon and stars, as fully as he could have owned them if they 
had been made for him alone and without reference to any 
other being whatsoever; while no one could afford to have his 
fellow being impoverished, because that to the same extent 
would be an impoverishment of himself. For such are the 
harmonies of the God who is over all, through all and in all. 
And this will be the spiritual Sabbath, the Christian "Salvation" 
in its completeness, and the mystical "nirvana" of the Buddhists, 
concerning the nature of which there have been so many specu- 
lations; and this when more completely realized in the heavens 
will be the grand harvest home of the intelligent universe. 

We have thus completed our survey of the stages of pro- 
gressive transformations through which human society has 
passed from its inception to the present time, and of the futttre 
stages through which, in accordance with the law of the series, 
it would seem it has yet to pass to its final earthly culmination. 
The order of these successive steps is evidently the same as 
that which occurs in the seven notes of the musical scale, in 



2X4 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven periods of geological 
formation, the seven degrees in the evolution of vegetable and 
animal forms, the seven epochs in the cycles of human his- 
tory, and the sevenfold series found in every other composite 
and complete system throughout the wide universe, — with com- 
plementary relations between the first and fourth, second and 
fifth, and third and sixth, the same as in the series of prismatic 
colors. The evidence of its general truthfulness, therefore, is 
indefinitely cumulative according asv/e extend the observation 
of its types and correspondences. 

Among the truths which seem to be made clear in the light of 
this general survey is one which may serve as a useful lesson 
to the would-be reformers just now referred to. It is that 
communism, truly so called, is possible only at the 
beginning and ending of this scale of degrees in human social 
conditions. Savagis?n in its lowest type, is evidently a species 
of Conu7iunism, because among such wild men, each one owns 
all things he can lay his hands upon, and even owns his fellow 
being if he is hungry and has nothing more convenient with 
which he can satisfy his appetite, whilst on the other hand, if 
his neighbor is more hungry or more strong than he, the appro- 
priation to use may as justly take the inverse course. In the 
seventh degree, of course, the extreme opposite of all this is 
the case, and the common possession is for the good of ail as 
well as of each individual. 

An effort therefore, to establish communism in any moral 
gradation of society lower than the fourth^ must necessarily 
run into wild, chaotic anarchy or quasi savagism, because its 
moral gravitation would necessarily be towards the bottom; an 
effort to establish it in any degree above the fourth and below 
the seventh, must necessarily fail of complete success for want 
of maturity of elements, and its results, at least, would be like 



THE END OF THE AGES. 215 

windfallen fruit, ripened in the sun — withered, worm-eaten 
and unhealthy. There are however, certain common as well 
as individual interests in all grades of social organization, and 
these are what have given rise to the word ' 'communitj^" as used 
in common parlance, and are among the occult forces which 
impel society in its progressive course of involuntary and un- 
conscious effort to make all interest common in the finishing 
up of the great divine scheme of evolution. 

It is true that types and prophecies of the Spiritual Com- 
mune have for a long time existed in the world — first, in the 
loose form of the early Christian Church, which was a Commune 
(Acts iv. 32); then in the forms of Monasticism, both Bud- 
dhistic and Christian; and latterly in the forms of Shakerism 
and kindred social organizations; but these are only types at 
best, falling far short of the reality of that which is represented 
by them. They are but little islands in the boundless ocean of 
human society, and though green and fragrant each in its dif- 
ferent way, they are not commendable for any other purpose 
than to develop partial and one-sided phases of human nature. 

We have then obtained — we hope satisfactorily to the reader 
— the answer to the question which forms the caption of this 
chapter. That answer is, that the present government of the 
American Republic is not the highest form of government that 
is possible, but that there are in the nature of things, at least 
two vastly higher forms of government beyond it which are at- 
tainable, and which in the progressive evolutions of the human 
race under the divine laws will yet certainly be realized. And 
to such aspirations and prayers and persistent and indefatig- 
able labors as may tend to the progressive realization of these 
ulterior stages of growth all intelligent and philanthropic 
minds of the age are most earnestly invited by the innumerable 
angels who are now bending in sympathy over our suffering earth. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

TRACES OF THE PATH THAT LEADS ONWARD. 

Previous proofs that we cannot go onward without change; Certainty that there 
is a way out; This must he. fou7id, not contrived; Next stage a Fifth in the 
Scale of Seven; Functions and correspondences of Fifths — Complementary 
relations in the scale; Argument thence; Present 84 year subcycle answer- 
ing to period from T008 to 1260; Urban Republics and cooperative guilds; 
Hints from these; Our present 84 year subcycle a Jifthmthe cycle of 
mode^'n history — Strength of the argument; Traces of the path begin to 
appear. 

AMONG the discoveries made in our last chapter, the one 
that now most immediately concerns us is, that in the 
arcana of the divine laws there are types and prophecies of 
higher forms of government than that of the specific Republi- 
can system by which the Anglo-American nation is now ruled. 
The importance of this thought is intensified by the conclusion 
to which we were forced at a still earlier stage of our inquiries 
— that it is impossible for the American nation to go forward 
in its destined progress, and to fulfill its grand mission as a 
leader of the human race in civilization, freedom and social 
justice, without some essential modification in the structure 
and functional workings of our system. As the very thought 
of a retrograde step towards the formal re-establishment of 
despotism and political servility, will be intolerable to the 
great majority of our people, we are forced to cast about us to 
find some traces of the path that leads onward to a new and 
higher gradation in the scale of Dolitical and social life — even 



THE END OF THE AGES. 21 7 

a higher than any which has yet been clearly exemplified in the 
history of the human race. 

That there is a way out of all our present difficulties, may 
be considered just so certain as that God is wise and true. 
But the only way is God's way, the sure and only indications 
of which may be found by consulting the divine laws eternally 
established in the nature, of things. Mere human contrivances 
and artificial expedients will be of no avail in working out for 
us any higher conditions than those now existing; and if mil- 
lions of such expedients were projected before the world, they 
would all necessarily fail. We have already declared in sub- 
stance, and now repeat, that the only true plan of procedure, 
and the only one that can ever be attended by any permanent 
results for good, is that which eternally IS, and needs only to 
be discovered^ and put in practice. Humbly, then, do we in- 
terrogate Nature and the God of Nature, for the disclosure of 
this important secret, which, when properly exposited, we pre- 
dict will stand forth in such clear light of self-evidence that 
almost any ordinary intellect may understand and appreciate it 
as to its main aspects and. bearings. 

Let it be particularly noted, then, that the stage of prog- 
ress to which we aspire as the next beyond and superior to 
the present, is a Fifth in the scale of septinary gradations into 
which nature arranges all her complete systems in correspond- 
ence with each other. By observing the characteristics and 
correlations of fifths in other and corresponding scales of 
seven, and applying their analogies, we may therefore obtain 
some important clews to certain leading characteristics of the 
new order of things which we are now seeking. 

Now the fifth note in the. musical scale — the dominant note, 
as it is called — has a natural gravitation to the. eighth, which is 
the first of the new scale above. That is to say, if the three 



2l8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

notes of the major harmonic triad — the first, third and fifth of 
the scale — -be sounded in succession, the ear is not quite satis- 
fied unless the eighth is sounded as a close; and it is this fact 
that has caused the scale to be called an octave instead of a sep- 
tave, as it more properly is. Now as the fifth gradation in the 
scale of social evolutions is to that scale what the fifth note is 
to the scale of music, so that fifth also must gravitate to an 
eighth; that is to say, it must he aspiraio/y, have a tendency to 
rise or progress, and ally itself more and more to what, from 
analogy or revelation, may be conceived to be the first and 
rudimental form of the divine spiritual government in the 
world beyond. 

The fifth color in the prismatic scale, has the same relations 
and correspondences, and teaches the same lesson, but in a 
way too recondite to be made clear at present without occupy- 
ing too much space. 

In the sevenfold scale of animal forms, commencing in the 
protoplastic monad called amoeba, and ending in man, the 
fifth general division, or sub-kingdom, has for its central type 
the winged Saurians and birds, also flying insects — animals 
which soar above the earth into the quasi spiritual regions of 
the atmosphere and towards the source of sunlight. The cor- 
respondence of this to the aspiratory, ideal, spiritual and hence 
progressive characteristics of a fifth degree in the evolutions 
of human society, is too plain to need special illustration. 

In the evolutions of plant life, the fifth degree in the scale 
is the flower. In the vegetable kingdom as a whole, it is 
flowering plants. And in the fifth or what may called the 
flowering degree of society, humanity, as to its dominant 
classes, must exhale the perfume of its loves and aspirations 
into the ambient social atmosphere, and to the heavens above 
for the impartial benefit of all. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 219 

And SO of the correspondence of fifths in all other seven- 
fold scales, many of which we have pointed out in a former 
work,* and several of which will be incidentally brought into 
view hereafter. 

But there is another point in the sevenfold scale from which 
some of the leading characteristics of this fifth stage of human 
progress may be still farther argued. All the textbooks in the 
natural philosophy tell us that between the first and fourth, 
the second and fifth and the third and sixth colors in the pris- 
matic spectrum — that is to ?ay, between the red and green, 
the orange and blue, and the yellow and indigo, — there are 
'•'■compleuientary" relations — meaning by that, the relations be- 
tween the two extremes of either one of the sub-series included 
within either of these opposite ordinal numbers. These 
'■ '• complementa^-y relations, as they are called, are demonstrated 
in a variety of ways, well known to men of science, and the 
proofs need not be repeated in this place. The same relations 
exist between the first and fourth, second and fifth, and third 
and sixth notes in the diatonic scale of music, as any delicate 
musical ear may demonstrate to itself by sounding in succes- 
sion the notes included in either of those sub-series, and notic- 
ing that the ear is not quite satisfied with the sounding of three 
of the notes without sounding the fozirth as a close. 

Now the same complementary relations exist with more or 
less conspicuousness, in all natural scales of seven. With the 
illustration of this fact many pages might be filled; but for the 
sake of avoiding the appearance of prolixity, they are here 
omitted, and we proceed directly to the one illustration with 
which we are particularly concerned. 

In the sevenfold series of societary gradations constituting 
the scale of nature, we found the first to be that of wild, 



* The Macrocosm and Microcosm, etc. 



220 THE END OF THE AGES. 

unorganized individualism; while the fourth degree, or the 
crude Republic, we found to be that of cultivated, organized 
and law-governed individualism — for individualism it distinc- 
tively is in both cases. 

The second degree we found to be distinctively characterized 
as the /'r//5'<z/ relation; but the different tribes, dissociated from 
each other, were mutually jealous and hostile, and ever liable 
to become embroiled in wars. The fifth degree, in order to 
sustain a relation complementary to this second, must exem- 
plify the other and superior extreme of the social form here 
known as the tribal state, — that is, it must also consist of dis- 
tinct and segregated consociatiuns, each having an autonomy 
in its own sphere, and with respect to its own internal affairs; 
but instead of these being mutually jealous and hostile, they 
must all cooperate with each other for the common good, and 
be harmoniously organized together as one body politic, with 
a common government or Head which must, in a general way, 
be supreme. The basis on which these consociations and the 
general organization must rest, will be shown hereafter. 

Correspondences more directly illustrating this branch of 
our subject are found in the periods of the Grand Cycle of the 
Christian Era, treated in a previous portion of this volume. 
Thus during the first period of 252 years, the Roman Empire 
and Religion, declining from the zenith of their power to the 
decrepitude of old age, were pervaded by that new power, the 
Christian Church, which, though as yet comparatively unor- 
ganized, and acknowledging no visible or earthly center of 
government, became the vitalizing spirit of a new departure 
for thought and civilization. We may therefore contemplate 
that period not so much in respect to the decline of the Roman 
Empire and Religion, as with reference to the example which 
it affords, of the inauguration of the first and chaotic stage of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 221 

a new grand series of humanitary unfoldings, corresponding, 
in a certain way, to the first and chaotic stage of the Race's 
development, which we have called the Savage or wild stage. 
Now the fourth period in the grand cycle, which, according to 
the rule, should be complementary to this first, is that which 
commenced with the inauguration of the temporal power of 
the pope in 756 and extended to the year 1008 — thus including 
the period of the ^z^^^-z redintegration of the Roman Empire by 
Charlemagne and the completion of the system of feudalism in 
the quasi republics of co-equal baronies over which emperors 
and kings had but little control. This period, also, as mid- 
way between the first and seventh, contains the line of demar- 
cation between ancient Romism and modern Europism which, 
after the death of Charlemagne and the division of his empire, 
became distinctly apparent in the new political and ecclesiasti- 
cal tendencies and courses of development. This yfrj/ and this 
fourth period, therefore, appear in some sense antithetical to 
each other, or as the opposite extremes of one sub-series; and 
in this sense they are complementary. 

As a small and large circle (or cycle, which is but another form 
of the same word) contains the same number of degrees, and 
the same mathematical elements, so we find here, in the fourth 
period of the large cycle, this among other correspondences 
with the fourth dodecade of the American Republic — that up 
to the fourth stage of the latter, beginning with the declaration 
of war against England in 1812, the thoughts of the fathers of 
our Republic were largely retroversive, being employed on the 
question how we might escape being absorbed back again into 
the parent government. But after the war had quieted these 
apprehensions, and about the middle of this fourth dodecade, 
the national thought and aspiration was prolate^ or carried for- 
ward, and began to be employed upon the second branch of 



222 THE END OF THE AGES. 

our great national idea — "We hold these truths to be self- 
evident, that all men are created equal" etc. In both cycles, 
therefore, there is a distinctly manifest line of demarcation 
between the reminiscences of the past and ideals of the 
future. 

The Secofid sub-period in the grand Cycle commenced with 
the year 252, and about the completion of the confederation of 
the seven tribes of Franks mainly for the purpose of driving 
the Romans out of Gaul, and extended to 504 or about the 
time the Franks became complete masters of Gaul, thence 
called France. This was a period preeminently characterized 
by the domination of the barbarian hordes throughout the 
Roman Empire of the west, the Empire itself being destroyed 
by the Heruli in 476. Thus barbarism was placed under the 
taming influence of Christianity, the form of which had pre- 
viously acquired a worldly status and power under the Emperor 
Constantine and his successors. In the corrupt form which it 
had already assumed, it was more readily accepted by these 
rude tribes than it could have been in its purity as it fell from 
the lips of Jesus and his apostles. Yet, adulterated and dis- 
guised as it was, some portion of the true leaven was there, 
to work out its results slowly and progressively during the 
ages that were to follow. 

The fifth sub-period, extending to the scheme set forth else- 
where, from the year 1008 to 1260, exhibits a carrying over of 
the tribal interests of these barbaric times into formal Crystal- 
lizations of the civil, social and intellectual interests of the 
common people. Schools, other than monastic, were at- 
tempted, though with indifferent success, early in the eleventh 
century; but by the middle of the following century a decided 
revival of learning was observable; and thenceforward there 
was increasina: attention to intellectual culture. The Crusades 



THE END OF THE AGES. 223 

which occurred within this period, and the institution of 
Chivalry which grew out of them, had a marked influence 
upon learning and manners, and in developing those aspira- 
tions for higher intellectual and social conditions which are 
characteristic of 2l fifth degree. 

But chiefly in those numerous miniature and Urban Republics 
which arose during this fifth period, and in their confederacies 
for mutual aid and protection against the barons and the 
emperors, do we find the characteristics of a relation comple- 
mentary to the second or barbaric period or that of the dom- 
inance of the northern tribes which overran the Roman Em- 
pire. These little republics began to germinate in Italy soon 
after the beginning of the nth century, and by the latter part 
of the century following, they had become so numerous and 
so powerful in their combinations as to compel the Emperor 
Frederick Barbarossa to march his army over the mountains 
three times to restrain their influence. This species of free 
civic organization gradually extended into Germany, and at a 
later age, some eighty of these free cities confederated to. 
gether, as we have already seen, under the. title of the Hanse- 
atic League^ and became sufficiently powerful to maintain their 
ground against all outside opposition. 

The mainspring of these little republics — that which led to 
their formation, and which afterwards developed them into 
flourishing and prosperous communities — was mutual protec- 
tion, cooperative industry^ and commerce with the outside world. 
The incipient step in the formation of each was the consocia- 
tion together of some hundreds or thousands of persons of 
different and interchanging branches of business, who would 
choose some convenient locality and there build their huts and 
workshops and surround them with walls for protection, and 
these, becoming more numerous, and spreading over more 



224 THE END OF THE AGES. 

extended areas, afterwards became cities with walls sufficiently 
strong to defy the imperfect artillery of the predatory barons. 
Those of the same trade or profession would consociate to- 
gether and form a "corporation" or "guild." Each of these 
corporations or guilds would be governed by its own rules, 
among which was one requiring certain qualifications as to 
skill and character in order to admit a person to membership; 
and all these, consociated together as one, were governed by 
civic laws in the enactment of which all had a voice. And 
thus the industrial arts flourished among them, and they be- 
came wealthy and, for the times, intelligent and happy; while 
the confederations of kindred communities became a source of 
commercial gain as well as a means of mutual protection to all. 

It is in these cooperative guilds and industrial consociations 
of the fifth degree and period that we more distinctly find the 
complementary relation, or antithetical side, of the tribal con- 
sociations in the second degree and period with their mutual 
antagonisms and hostilities. And herein do we find a type — 
imperfect, it is true, — of the form which our own government 
must assume as a fifth degree in the series of human relations 
in order that the nation may advance in the performance of 
its glorious mission. 

Now let it be distinctly observed, that while the new politi- 
cal and social condition, the secret of whose general spirit and 
form we are now endeavoring to wrest from the arcana of 
natural laws, will be the fifth in the order of the possible gov- 
ernmental developments of the race as shown in our last chap- 
ter; and while it will correspond to the. fifth type of develop- 
ment in the grand cycle of the Christian Era as just shown — 
/'/ 7C'/7/ also fall into the fifth sub-period and stage of evolution in the 
cycle of modern history. That cycle, as we have already shown 
in a previous chapter, commenced in the Declaration of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 225 

Independence from Rome by Luther in 1524, to the initiament 
of Colonial America on the James River in 1608; the second ex- 
tended from that date to the general extinction of Colonial 
charters by the British Crown and the laying of a new basis 
for colonial government in 1692; the third extended from 1692 
to the Declaration of American Independence in 1776; the 
fourth^ hence properly demi-republican period — extended from 
1776 to the beginning of the secession of states and the slave- 
holder's rebellion of i860 — each of these sub-cycles being ex- 
actly 84 years in duration. All the ideas on which our form of 
republican government was founded being worked up in the 
triumph over the rebellion and the destruction of slavery, as 
before shown, we conclude that the year i860, while it ended 
the fourth, commenced a 7f///^ period, during which, according 
to the divine laws which rule the universe, we must either 
move forward to the higher, aspiratory, cooperative and pro- 
gressive Republic, or fall back either into despotism or anar- 
chy, which latter alternative, may God forbid! 

Now when the evident truth is considered, that all these 
correlative fifths which we have brought into view in the course 
of the outworking of these analogies and correspondences, are 
evidently one and the same note, occurring in different octaves 
of the great gamut of the universe, and that, as such, it 
teaches the essential and general principles of the same lessons 
wherever it occurs, it may well be left to the intelligent reader 
to determine in his own mind, whether our argument is not a 
pretty strong one. 

We do think that some few faint traces of the probable 
path that will lead us onward and upward now begin to be ap- 
parent, and that we are beginning to get some hints looking to 
a final definition of the 7iew national Idea of which we have been 
so long in quest. 

15 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL ELEMENTS AS PRELIMINARY TO THE 
I QUESTION OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

The Body Politic a Man; Its primary ingredients and tissues; Seven correlative 
degrees present now and always; These degrees described and illustrated 
in their serial order; They constitute the sum total of human qualities; 
Their gradations relative, and each susceptible of infinite improvement; 
We have them representatively in our individual selves; Shakespeare's 
"Seven Ages;" No absolute equality; Superior and subordinate autono- 
mies; Room relatively for kings and princes in every class. 

'T^HE great Body of Humanity, or of the nation, or of any 
-'- distinctly organized society, containing in itself a uni- 
versality of active human elements, may as already affirmed, 
be considered identical, as to its involved principles, with an in- 
dividual man. This thought hereafter will be held constantly 
in view, and its truthfulness and importance will grow more 
and more conspicuous as illustrations incidentally multiply. 
In seeking that light of intelligence in which any supposed 
disorders existing in that grand man may be corrected, two 
questions of primary importance occur, and these are: ist, 
Of what general ingredients or primary tissues is that grand 
man composed ? and 2nd, What are the general facts and 
principles of its anatomy and physiology ? The first of these 
questions shall now occupy our attention, while reserving the 
second for consideration in the chapter next following. 

The seven stages through which we have, in a previous 



THE END OF THE AGES. 227 

chapter, shown that human society in its progress may pass, or 
in other words, the seven conditions in which it may succes- 
sively center itself, are, on careful analysis, found to be, even 
now representatively present, though as yet comparatively 
chaotically, in humanity at large, in our own nation, 
and in every other nation. Humanity, then, as we have 
to deal with it in laboring for the proposed reforms, is 
composed of seven general ingredients or classifications of persons^ 
according to their respective moral and mental conditions. 

I. The first and lowest class present characteristics which, 
when carefully examined, are found to resemble those of 
SAVAGES. We need not go to the wilds of interior Africa, or 
to the South Sea Islands, to find human beings of this class, 
for they are right here among us, in our populous cities, and 
scattered more or less all over the country. They include all 
those who have no respect for laws; no conception of abstract 
justice; no regard for the rights and interests of others; no 
active desire for the moral and social improvement even of 
their own condition, and their constant ruling impulse is 
merely the desire for the gratification of the appetites, pas- 
sions and physical wants of the passing moment. To prove 
that such persons are savages in principle, and that if removed 
from the blandishments and restraints of surrounding civil- 
ized society, they would be savages as to their form of life, we 
will suppose several hundreds or thousands of them to be 
transported to the wilds of some remote and hitherto unsettled 
territory. In such a case we would find that although they 
might be gratuitiously furnished with axes, ploughs, oxen and 
all the implements of agricultural and mechanical industry, yet 
left to their freedom to do precisely as they might be inclined, 
they would almost all betake themselves to their guns and 
fishing rods, and don the habits of savage life. And these 



228 THE END OF THE AGES. 

persons, of both sexes, as they exist among us, are not con- 
fined to the slums and hells of Water Street and the Five 
Points, but often stroll through the respectable thoroughfares 
of life, in city and country, disguised in fair external appear- 
ances, and held up to the semblance of respectability by the 
pressure of outside civilized society and its laws. 

2. The class which stands next in the scale of existing grada- 
tions, includes all those who are inclined to clannish combina- 
tions, and partisanship pivoted on local conditions, or 
on some prejudice, superstition or other peculiarity of mental 
structure and development. This general class, always 
segregated into a variety of naturally antagonizing divisions, 
includes the priest-ridden and the politician-ridden — those 
who take umbrage at the wearing of an orange badge and 
those whose indignation is equally inflamed by the appearance 
of green badges on the breasts of their neighbors— those who 
are devoted to the interests of this, that, or the other "good 
fellow" or "bully boy;" and it even sometimes includes the 
"up-towners" and the "down-towners," the "north-siders" 
and the "south-siders, " the "west-enders" and the "east-end- 
ers." The old volunteer fire companies of our principal cities, 
whose practice it was to raise false alarms for "free fights;" 
the "Plug-Ugiies" of Baltimore; the "Killers" of Philadelphia; 
the "Dead Rabbits" of New York; the "Battle Row" and 
"Crow Hill" gangs of Brooklyn, are all exemplifications of the 
clannish and barbaric classes that are intermixed with our 
civilized society. In the sphere of politics^ this clanship once 
had a formidable representative in the old Empire Club of 
New York city. It has other representatives in the Tammany 
factions. In both political parties it is represented by the fac- 
tions that carry primary elections by foul means; and through 
its victories at the primaries and nominating conventions, it 



THE END OF THE AGES. 229 

quite too often succeeds in sending its representative to the 
state legislatures, and to the Congress of the United States, 
in the forms of liquor dealers, gamblers, prize fighters and in 
passion-swayed self-seekers and sectionalists of every grade. 

3. The third class is comprised of those who embody in 
themselves the principle that '■^niight makes right" and selfishly 
follow it as the supreme rule of their action. There are those 
who, from childhood, have a propensity to domineer over their 
playmates, and render them subservient to their personal views, 
their interests and their ambitious aspirations. As they grow 
up, they become the leading spirits in every boyish game, in- 
augurating it or breaking it up at their will — the ringleaders in 
every concerted schoolboy mischief, and in every college re- 
bellion. Grown to manhood, they will be at the head of every 
clique, club or other consociated movement inaugurated within 
the circle of their companions, or they will be nowhere. It is 
even from the higher grades of this class at a more mature age 
of life, that we have some of our merchant princes, our rail- 
road kings, and those of our great capitalists who do not 
scruple to use their wealth as an instrument of tyranny over 
the poor. It was this class that furnished the great bulk of 
our former slave-holders, and it is this which furnishes all of 
our present enslavers of the masses by the power of money, 
social influence or priestly dogmatism. In every form of 
society below the republic, they are, de facto \i not de Jure, the 
leaders and controllers, and even in the republic, our politics 
are largely characterized by the commanding influence of their 
personal magnetism, their money and their social position. 
The great conquerors, despots and tyrants of the earth have 
all belonged to this class. The love of ruling as based upon 
the supreme love of self which forms the aniunis and central 
characteristic of this class would, if left to a free, unlimited 



230 THE END OF THE AGES. 

and eternal course of natural outworking, be attended with 
results inconceivably direful, proceeding, as it necessarily 
would, to the conquest of the whole world, of all heavens, 
and to the dethronement of God himself, that it might rule 
alone, and without a rival. But circumscribed as it is by the 
limits of natural possibilities, and restrained by the divine 
forces and laws of the material and spiritual worlds, this pas- 
sion and power of rulership has been a subordinate cause of 
vast benefit to mankind in stages of society antedating the 
present, as it has sometimes been the only potential means of 
establishing order and government in place of the chaos and 
anarchy which otherwise would necessarily have prevailed. 

It was the presence of this class in our republic, which in 
one of its characteristic developments, gave rise to the slave- 
holder's rebellion of 1860-1865, for the purpose of maintaining 
its dominion over some four million Africans. It was the 
same class in another one of its characteristic developments 
which contributed its full share of the money, the military com- 
manders, and the persevering energy to beat down the slave- 
holder's rebellion — not with a view to the destruction of negro 
slavery, for that was a measure that was entered upon with re- 
luctance — -but for the purpose of preserving territorial union, 
governmental order, and their own controlling influence over 
their respective spheres of interest and activity at the North. 
And now the government is held in equilibrio between the two 
sections, and between this and that class and political party, 
until divine Truth and Justice get ready to rescue it from the 
control of both, and carry it up one degree higher. 

These three classes covering the lower grades of human in- 
terests, passions and lusts, naturally form a trinity; but in 
the absence of higher classes, and their predominating moral 
influence, they can be kept in the unity of orderly government 



THE END OF THE AGES. 231 

only by a controlling central mind and by a strong pressure of 
outside force. As they existed in the early stages of the 
world's progress, being almost the only classes then existing, 
they constituted the despots, the satraps and the slaves of the 
old Babylonian, Assyrian and other Oriental Empires. In re- 
publics, they necessarily form the disorderly and dangerous 
classes. Admitted to equal citizenship with others, they 
attack political and social problems with their passions and their 
foxlike cunning, looking only to selfish ends — and not with 
moral sense, with the higher faculties of the intellect and with 
wisdom; and they are especially active in the disorganizing ag- 
itations of this day, claiming for themselves the creations of 
their labor after the wages of labor have been paid them, and 
threatening vengeance upon capitalists — because they are not 
capitalists themselves. 

4. The fourth class consists of those who have a more dis- 
tinct feeling of justice to the neighbor, of equality of rights, 
and of personal liberty. It can not brook tyranny or oppres- 
sion, or the enslavement of human beings in any form. Its 
trite motto is "One man is as good as another;" and while 
never disposed to exempt any one from the just consequences 
of evil deeds, it is ever inclined to take the part of the weak 
against the strong, the poor against the rich, the oppressed 
against the oppressor. It is a class, however, quite as much 
characterized by negative as by positive qualities. It leaves 
everything to its shihis in quo, and to its natural activities, 
provided that it does not interfere in some conspicuous man- 
ner with human liberty and equal rights. It often declaims 
against "too much government," demanding simply "to be 
left alone," and suffers everything to drift to the brink of de- 
struction before putting forth an effort for the conservation of 
the social compact. It has no distinct plans or aspirations, 



232 THE END OF THE AGES. 

and puts forth no efforts, for the enlargementof human nature, 
the refinement of the mental faculties or personal habits of 
men, or the increase of the sum total of happiness in the world. 
It is, in short, a consociated crudity, consisting of mutually 
law-governed individuals on a dead level with each other; and 
considered in this point of view, it is as a fourth degree of hu- 
manity, complementary to the wild, roaming and free individual- 
ism of the first and lowest degree, known as savagism. 

5. The fifth class, embracing all the free and freedom lov- 
ing qualities of the. fioiirth, adds thereto the aspiration for en- 
largement, refinement and improvement in all things pertain- 
ing to the individual, and to the social order. To this class 
belong the natural educators, the scientists, the inventors and 
improvers of machinery, the sculptors, the painters, the mu- 
sicians, the poets, and those who are devoted to the aesthetic 
arts of all grades. Its relation, as complementary to the 
second class, may be seen in the comparative aspects of the 
two. Both classes are sub-divided into groups. In the second 
class these groups are founded upon personal leaderships, 
and local, political and religious prejudices, sympathies and 
antipathies; in the higher class they are founded upon similar- 
ities of tastes, aspirations and endeavors for the general 
melioration and beautification of human conditions. In the 
lower class, the groups are dissociated, unsympathizing and 
often mutually hostile; in the higher, they are fraternal, inter- 
blending, cooperative, and public spirited. 

6. To the sixth class belong all those who have a predomi- 
nant disposition to inquire into the nature, causes, origins, 
careers, destinies, correlations, analogies and correspondences 
of things, and into their relative positions and functions in the 
grand system of nature as a whole. It is this class therefore, 
that furnishes to the world its philosophers, its organizers, its 



THE END OF THE AGES. 233 

great expounders of natural law, and its men of practical wis- 
dom. In numbers it is the smallest of all the classes included 
in our general scale, and in times of great political and social 
degeneracy, like the present, its very existence is almost 
totally ignored. Though negelcted and often the subject of 
scoffs by superficial minds, who pride themselves upon their 
shrewdness in devising expedients to serve the passing moment 
of danger, yet in great crises, such as that which is now at 
our doors, safety is to be found only in an observance of its 
wise counsels and those of the class still higher. 

That this sixth class stands in complementary relation to the 
third vi'iW be manifest from the following considerations: The 
thi?'d class, as we have seen, is distinctively characterized by 
the love of ruling as based upon the love of self . The sixth class 
is also characterized by the love of ruli?ig, but in it this love is 
not based upon the love of self, but upon the predominating 
love of the universal order, peace, prosperity and happiness of 
mankind. And the world will yet learn that this class and the 
one still beyond, are the only ones that are capable of furnish- 
ing the legislative, judicial and executive officers of a govern- 
ment incapable of tyranny, oppression or injustice to any class; 
a government in strict harmony with the divine laws estab- 
lished in nature, and capable of securing the highest benefits 
to every individual. 

7. The seventh class is one which occupies as much the sphere 
of the spiritual as of the earthly nature of man, and forms the 
connecting link between this world and the world beyond. It 
is the class which has furnished the prophets and seers of all 
ages and nations, and to no other class besides this belong the 
naturally qualified and hence legitimate spiritual teachers of 
the world. Natural physicians of the soul and body are those 
whose constitutional psychic peculiarities enable them to occupy 



234 THE END OF THE AGES. 

a position between life and death, and hence to enter efficiently 
into the contests between the two, for the mastery. No 
amount therefore, of merely external science, however useful 
it may be as a subsidiary qualification, can ever make a skill- 
ful medical practitioner of one who does not possess in some 
marked degree, the natural gifts and endowments character- 
istic of this seventh class. And the notorious and undeniable 
fact, that patients, after being abandoned by learned physici- 
ans as incurable, have been speedily restored to health by mag- 
netic passes made by ignorant persons, or by simple herb teas 
administered by the hands of some old woman, finds its solu- 
tion in the fact that these persons belong to this seventh class, 
and are endowed with those spiritual perceptions, intuitions 
and clairvoyant powers which constitute them natural physicians. 

In designating these several classes of mankind with the 
distinctive peculiarities of each, it is not meant to be under- 
stood that they are divided from each other by sharp lines of 
demarcation, or indeed, that any individual person stands ex- 
clusively in any one of these positions, and is destitute of the 
characteristics of the others. 

The lowest, indeed, possesses some of the characteristics of 
the highest, and of all the intermediate grades, either germin- 
ally or in actual potence; while the same may be said of the 
highest in respect to the lowest, and their intermediates. All 
these several gradations are required to comprise the sum 
total of human qualities; and in speaking of them separately, 
we speak only of the seven distinctive points and classifications 
of individuals at which the sum total of humanity has its 
natural, potential and correlative focalizations, and from which 
as discrete centers of action, the machinery of human society 
is kept in motion. 

Naturally and unavoidably therefore, we have all these 



THE END OF THE AGES. 235 

different classes among us. They have, indeed, always existed, 
either in latent or manifested forms, and will necessarily exist 
throughout all higher worlds, though, of course, in specific and 
relative conditions susceptible, each of infinite evolutions and 
improvements. We have them, indeed, representatively in the 
successive stages of our own individual lives, of which 
Shakespeare's Seven Ages furnish not unapt though not very 
accurate illustrations; and we have them imagined and neces- 
sitated in the types and correspondences of every complete 
system of nature, whether on a large or small scale. 

The language therefore, of the Declaration of American In- 
dependence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
men were created equal," is true or false, according to the in- 
terpretation that may be placed upon it — true, if it be held to 
mean that all are equal as to their right and title to strict 
justice, whatever that may be in each given case; false, if it 
means that all are equally tall or equally short, equally strong 
or equally weak, equally wise or equally simple, or equally 
elevated or equally depressed in the scale of natural, moral and 
social gradations. As it is the law of nature, therefore, that 
the higher members of the same body should beneficently and 
parentally direct and rule the lower (in like manner as the 
head rules the motions of the feet and hands, for example), so 
it is not only just, but generous and kind — indeed, abounden 
duty — that the '■'•heads of the people'' should in some supreme 
sense rule the whole Body Politic down to its very feet, repre- 
sented in its savage class — utilizing the forces which each 
class contains for the benefit of the classes themselves as well 
as of the whole Body — instead of allowing these forces to run 
riot into crime and the injury of all classes including them- 
selves, as is too frequently the case in the existing state of 
society. But we shall yet see, that while the laws of nature 



236 THE END OF THE AGES. 

provide for a central and unitizing government that shall rule 
over all, they also provide a subordinate autonomy for each of 
these classes, whereby they may govern or may be made to 
govern themselves^ each within its own legitimate sphere of in- 
terests. And thus, even in that which is relatively lowest, 
there will be found room for kings and princes and nobles; 
while from the standpoint of the Infinite there will appear 
nothing that is either high or low, but in the one united system, 
order and arrangement, God will be all in all. 

Such then being the several elementary primates which nec- 
essarily enter into the chemistry and histology, so to speak, of 
the Body Politic, and thence into its anatomy and physiology, 
it is impossible that the quality and status of political society 
should not be affected in some marked degree, by the qualities, 
better or worse, of these ingredients which enter into its com- 
position — just as the texture and sanitary condition of the in- 
individual human body is affected by the qualities of the dif- 
ferent articles of food by which it is nourished and built up. 
The plain lesson of this is that political government should 
look by advisory educational and legal instrumentalities, to the 
conditions under which its nascent constituents are brought 
into the world, and the influence by which the tendencies of 
their after lives are necessarily determined, to a greater or less 
extent. It would be no exaggeration to say, that a large 
majority of children that are now born, are the unwelcome off- 
spring of sensual passion, from which, by the law of hereditary 
transmission, they receive a moral taint which follows them 
through life, affecting not only themselves, but all by whom 
they are surrounded. Besides this, large numbers suffer from 
the ignorance, bad government, and bad example of parents; 
and almost all are in youth more or less exposed to the pervert- 
ing influence of bad associates. It is owing to such causes, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 237 

that almost all of the classes, and the individual members 
of the classes, we have described as forming the primary ingre- 
dients of the Body Politic, are quite inferior as to their personal 
qualities to what they would have been, had society been wise 
enough to provide, through its government, for such possible 
conditions in the genesis, training and education of its future 
members as would have tended to secure better types of 
humanity throughout all these discrete gradations of develop- 
ment. In its educational laws and sanitary and moral regula- 
tions, the future government, more wise than the present, will 
aim to establish such conditions as will secure the birth of 
constitutionally better men and women than we now have, 
and as will aim to bring these up under better influences, and 
to train them to better ways; and in thus providing for the 
improvement of its elementary ingredients, the Body Politic 
will become healthier, stronger and more normal in all its 
organic functions. 



CHAPTER XX. 

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE TRUE BODY POLITIC. 

Knowledge of it necessary to diagnosis and remedy; Nature persistently inter- 
rogated; The grand divisions of the political organs and functions de- 
scribed; Raw Material; Mechanics and Manufactures; Distribution or com- 
merce; Money and its laws of distribution and circulation; Exaltation, re- 
finement and beautification of all things; Wisdom and its offices in the 
Body Politic; Spirituality; God in the Constitution. 

TTAVING thus pointed out the primary ingredients which 
^ -'■ necessarily enter into the composition of the Body Poli- 
tic and Social, we will now endeavor to ascertain the several 
points of attraction from within, and impulsions from with- 
out, which bring these elements together in the organic form 
of political society. In so doing, we shall at the same time 
ascertain the statural form of political organism, the correla- 
tion and interaction of its several parts, the conditions of 
health and disease, and the law that governs the whole in the 
exercise of its normal functions. By the analysis and syn- 
thesis thus proposed, we hope to take one large step towards 
an intelligent diagnosis of the disease by which our nation and 
all other nations are now affected; also towards the applica- 
tion of the natural, appropriate and effectual remedy, and 
towards the final definition of the great National Idea which is 
needed to lift our aspirations and guide our progress in the 
future. 

Disregarding, then, all merely human expedients and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 239 

artificial theories, and directly and persistently interrogating 
Nature for a solution of the great and yet simple and easily in- 
telligible problem before us, we are instantly answered: That 
there are seven grand, primary and dominating interests that 
are concerned in the organization and natural government of 
all political society. These are: I., Raw Material; II., J/"^- 
chanics d>.x\di Manufactures; III., Distribution; IV., Finance; V., 
Education (in the largest sense); VI., The University^ meaning 
the universality of learning, the Philosophy or ripe Wisdom; 
VII., Spirituality. 

Let us observe, now, what are included in these interests, 
and how they are correlated with each other. 

I. THE INTEREST OF RAW MATERIAL. 

Such material is included in the products of the forests in 
the way of timber and game; of the mines and quarries in the 
way of metals, building stone and useful minerals; of the 
waters in the way offish; and of the fields in the way of cereal 
grains, flesh meat, wool, cotton and other crude agricultural 
productions, etc. It is in such raw materials that mankind 
have the elements of food, clothing and shelter, and without 
them as supplying those primal physical wants, existence on 
earth would be impossible. 

II. MECHANICS AND MANUFACTURES. 

These are next in order, and are necessary to bring the raw 
productions of the forests, the mines, the fields, etc., into 
forms of use. The timber of the forests and the stones of the 
quarry need the skilled fingers of the carpenter, stone cutter 
and mason to fashion them into houses, barns and stables; the 
metals of the mines need the smelter, the refiner, the founder, 



240 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the smith and the machinist, to convert them into nails, bars, 
bolts, screws, tools, household utensils, farming implements 
and machinery; the wool, flax and cotton need the spinner, 
weaver, dyer, fuller and tailor to convert them into garments; 
and the raw hides stripped from the carcasses of slaughtered 
animals need the tanner and the boot and shoemaker to con- 
vert them into clothing for the feet. Without these branches 
of mechanical and manufacturing industry, besides numerous 
others incidental to these, the raw materials received from the 
hands of nature and from the cultivated fields would lie use- 
less, and only the few human beings who could find shelter in 
the caves of the earth, and food in the wild acorns, nuts and 
berries, and the flesh of animals, and clothing in skins of beasts 
slain in the chase, could even exist, much less develop into in- 
telligent, social beings. 

HI. DISTRIBUTION. 

But a large portion of these manufactured articles would be 
utterly useless without some contrivances to distribute them 
to persons and communities who need them. This brings into 
requisition, as next in order, the carrying business in all its 
forms and branches — the wagoning, the railroading, the boat- 
ing, the shipping, together with the storing and warehousing 
business — comprising in fact, the commercial and mercantile 
business in all its ramifications. Through these agencies and 
instrumentalities, articles of use and of taste are conveyed and 
distributed to all parts of the country, and indeed all parts of 
the world where they are needed. 

This completes the trine of interests that relate to the mere 
physical man as he exists in political society. Other names may 
be used as designating particular phases which these interests 
may sometimes assume, as the interests of defense against 



THE END OF THE AGES. 241 

enemies, against tlie depredations of thieves, the ravages of 
fire, pestilential miasm, or the interests of this, that or the 
other district or section involved in a road or a canal, or the 
improvement of a natural water course, etc., but they are all 
subordinate to and included in the foregoing general classifi- 
cations, which cover the whole ground of man's merely physi- 
cal nature. 

IV. FINANCE. 

Occupying as it does, the middle of the scale, this interest 
is subsidiary to all below and all above it, as we will be pre- 
pared more clearly to understand when we come to define its 
nature and to trace its correspondences. 

The raw productions of the earth, wrought into forms of use 
by mechanical and manufacturing labor, are now supposed 
to be distributed in the form of food, clothing and the means 
of shelter and bodily comfort, to those needing them. If the 
supply of these commodities is more than sufficient to meet the 
ordinary physical necessities of the people, the superabun- 
dance constitutes material wealth, which may be used as a 
means of leisure, luxury and pleasure, or employed as capital 
to open new mines, to cultivate new fields, or to build new 
workshops, manufactories, ships, railroads, etc., with a view to 
the enhancement of wealth and its powers; or it may be used 
for educating, refining, beautifying, and spiritualizing pur- 
poses. 

The mode by which wealth diffuses its power in the com- 
munity, the conventional form which it assumes for the con- 
venience of exchange and circulation, and its general functional 
operations as a great interest of the Body Politic, may be 
illustrated by the following, selected from among many other 
examples: A farmer raises five hundred bushels of wheat. 

16 



242 THE END OF THE AGES. 

After garnering it, he finds that he is unable to use a tenth part 
of it in his own family before-the time to gather the crop of the 
ensuing year. But he wants boots and shoes and clothing for 
himself and family; his buildings need repairing or new ones 
need to be constructed; his horses need to be shod; his plow 
shares need to be sharpened- or replaced by new ones; and his 
agricultural implements generally need overhauling preparatory 
to commencing the labors of another year, and these necessi- 
ties compel him to make drafts upon the labor and skill of 
the shoemaker, the carpenter, and perhaps upon persons of a 
dozen other different trades and professions who have raised 
no wheat and still need breadstuffs. Now it would be incon- 
venient and mutually unsatisfactory to both parties to give 
and receive wheat, and only wheat, in barter for the productive 
industry of these parties who are not themselves farmers; and 
so in order to avoid all unnecessar}' inconveniences of such an 
exchange of commodities, one man says to the farmer, "I will 
take all the wheat you have produced, or can produce here- 
after, and for it I will give you a representative of its value in 
a form which will admit of division into small or large portions; 
and with these divided portions of it, according to the value 
which each represents, you can pay for your boots and shoes, 
your tailoring, your blacksmithing, your tea, your coffee, 
sugar or whatever else you may need for yourself, your family 
or your business, according to the market price which each 
article bears; and when in the course of circulation from hand 
to hand, any part of this representative of value comes back 
again to me, I will take it in payment for wheat. 

Now this representative of values, in the form of bank notes, 
or coins stamped with the insignia of the government's sanction, 
is called money; and this simple process of thought reveals clear- 
ly what money is. It is not value in and of itself considered 



THE END OF THE AGES. 243 

simply in its material aspects, but it is the exchangeable 
representative of values. To say that a flattened, circular 
piece of silver weighing 420 grains, is intrinsically worth a 
bushel of wheat, or even one-half that, would be to utter what is 
plainly and notoriously false, for there is no economical use to 
which that piece of silver may be applied that would make it 
much if any more valuable than the same weight of iron. Al- 
most the only value of that piece of silver is derived from the 
power to cancel /rtij-/ ^<?<^/j-, that has been artificially conferred 
upon it by the universal agreement of mankind embodied in 
the "legal tender" statutes of governments; and from this it 
derives also a secondary power of purchasing commodities and 
measuring debts contracted for future payment, controlled 
however, in all cases, by the condition of the market and by 
the abundance or scarcity either of money on the one hand 
and purchasable goods on the other. 

Invested, however, with this cotiventional element of values, 
and by means of the government stamp, endowed with a mag- 
netism, a vitality, a spirit that is higher and derived from a 
higher source, than its material self, money becomes a vitally 
important and indeed fiatural element in civilized society, 
which has a still deeper meaning and which can be thoroughly 
and philosophically understood only by tracing its correspond- 
ences in nature. In each of the innumerable complete systems 
of nature that are resolvable into the sevenfold series, we 
may find, in more or less conspicuous aspects, the correspond- 
ential illustrations of the truth involved in this department of 
thought, but to one alone will we refer as most directly re- 
lated to our theme. We have already referred to the corre- 
spondence between the Body Politic, or the grand man, and the 
individual organism, and between the anatomical structure 
and physiological laws of the one and those of the other. Now 



244 THE END OF THE AGES. 

what is there in the individual organism that corresponds to 
money and the financial interest in the Body Politic and 
Social ? A clear answer to this question will explain the whole 
mystery. 

The beginning of the thread of correspondential reasoning, 
by which we may trace out in serial steps the conclusive answer 
to this question, is at the beginning of the alimentary process 
by which the body of the individual man (answering to the 
Body Politic) is built up, nourished and supported; and from 
that beginning we will trace it to the /^iz^r//? stage, where, as we 
shall see, it ultimates in the correspondence of money. 

Be it observed, then, that the individual man grows, repairs 
the natural wastes of his system, and keeps himself in a state 
of health and vigor, by appropriating to himself certain, if not 
fl'//, elements of the universe without, including both physical 
nature beneath, and spiritual nature above him. The first step 
toward this appropriation consists in the changes which the 
food undergoes in the mouth, where it is subjected to incision, 
breakage, mastication and ensalivation. The comminution of 
the food by the action of the teeth, is altogether a mechanical 
process, the object of which is to prepare it for thorough mix- 
ture with the saliva. The venom-like qualities of the inor- 
ganic portions of this fluid, killsordestroysthenormal molecular 
life of the food, and the mucous cells of the saliva, being of a 
protoplastic nature, thus having life in themselves, impregnate 
it with the first principles and potencies of animalization. 
All this is in correspondence with the first prehension and 
manipulation by the grand man, of the crude products of the 
forests, the mines, the fields, etc., on which he leaves tracesof 
action which will ever afterwards proclaim themselves as 
human, even though these materials should be fossilized and 
preserved for millions of years. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 245 

The second stage of the process, by which the individual man 
appropriates to his own organism the nutrient materials of the 
outer world, is the process which the food undergoes in the 
stomach. It is here mixed with the gastric juice, digested and 
changed into a form of substance known as chyme. And this 
is in exact correspondence with the ??iechantcal a7rd manufactur- 
ing ■^rocessts by which the grand man digests, so to speak, the 
crude products of nature into incipient forms of use. 

The third stdige. of the process by which the individual man 
appropriates to his own body the nutrient materials derived 
from the outer world, is that which the chyme undergoes in 
the duodenum or lower stomach., where it is mixed with the se- 
cretions of the liver, of the pancreas and of several other 
and minor glands and thereby converted into chyle, assorted 
into nutrient and faecal portions, and each distrihcted through 
its appropriate channels to its proper points of storage to 
meet farther drafts, or to its points of extrusion from the system 
as useless matter. This is in correspondence with the third 
function of the political and social organism, the commercial^ so 
called, whereby articles of utility supplied by the first two de- 
partments, are distributed to points where they are needed for 
use. 

The chyle, thus assorted from its unassimilable material — 
from its chips and debris, so to speak — passes through the 
walls of the intestines into myriads of little ducts; becomes 
mixed with the farther potentializing secretions of the mesen- 
tery glands, thus receiving the stamp, as it were, of the sanc- 
tion and acceptance of the government of the system. Thence 
it flows convergently through these numerous little tubes into 
a common tube, called the thoracic duct; and being thence 
discharged into the sub-clavian vein, it is mixed with the 
venous blood, and with it, is received into what may be called 



246 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the two primary cavities of the heart, the right auricle and the 
right ventricle. 

Now this lacteal or milk-like fluid that is found in the tubuli 
of the mesentery, and in the thoracic duct, is not the beef, 
corn, potatoes, beans, etc., that were taken into the mouth as 
food, but it is the ensemble of all of them reduced to homogenity 
just as the precious material about to be coined into money is 
representatively the ensemble of all commercial things valuable 
to mankind in organic society. The lacteal fluid, therefore, 
as the basic principle of the blood — indeed the virgin blood it- 
self — is the iveaWi of the human system, as yet, however, in a 
state of bullion. From the right compartments of the heart, 
it is sent to the lungs, as to the mint, for coinage; and thence 
receiving the arterial stamp, it is received back again to the 
heart, in its left compartments — whence, as from the great 
treasury, it is issued to the universal system. 

And so, speaking scientifically according to the law of cor- 
respondences, mojiey, the circulating medium of the Body 
Politic, is the blood oi that Body, and as such it serves for the 
development, sustentation and repairing of the wasted tissues 
of that grand Body in all of its departments, from head to 
foot, from bone to nerve, from finger nail to brain tissue, from 
highest to lowest interest — in direct correspondence with the 
functions that are served by the blood in the individual human 
system. 

Money, therefore, is just as indispensable in the Body 
Politic as blood is in the individual man; and as in the latter, 
the condition of the blood, as to its purity or impurity, its 
paucity or superabundance, its local stagnation or its free and 
universal circulation, has much to do with the health of the 
person ; so are precisely the same things predicable of money and 
financial movements in the Body Politic. While therefore, it is of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 247 

great importance that all those industries which amass and digest 
as it were, the materials of the nation's blood, should flourish 
unimpeded, and to the greatest possible extent, it is equally im- 
portant, as a counterpart and indispensable accessory to the same 
interest, that the great Heart of the political Body — the treasury 
and banking sysie/n with every subordinate reservoir of capital — should • 
be so constructed and regulated as not only to gather up from 
all parts of the Body, equally and justly, the materials of its 
own supply, but should send the same forth again to supply 
every organ, ramification and tissue of the Body with its 
needed pabulum. There should be no ossification of values, 
no pericardiasis, no hypertrophies or atrophies, but perfect 
systolic and diastolic motions, and free and open circulatory 
passages from aorta to capillary; for without these as among 
other fundamental conditions of the system, perfect health 
will be out of the question. 

The laws governing credit, interest, discount, the propor- 
tion of paper and metallic currency, etc., must be deduced 
from these basic principles, but cannot be dwelt upon now. 

V. EDUCATION. 

The next succeeding and higher interest in the Body 
Politic, is that which may be comprehensively expressed by 
the term Education. But this word must here be used in the 
most comprehensive application that is warranted by the Latin 
verb edncere from which it is derived, and which means to lead 
forth or draw out, impliedly from a prior and more immature 
to a higher and better condition. In this sense it will include 
not only intellectual instruction, such as is imparted to pupils in 
the existing schools, but all kinds of development and improve- 
ment, physical, intellectual, aesthetic and moral, as applying 



24o THE END OF THE AGES. 

both to individuals and to the nation itself as such. Being 
the Ji/i/i degree in the organic scale of society, it is essentially 
the aspirator)' degree. Its correspondence in the human or- 
ganism — slightly anticipated in the discussion of the previous 
Interest — is to the decarbonized and oxygenated blood, to the 
. lungs which accomplish this change in its condition by bringing 
to it the inspiration of an outside element — the oxygen of the 
air — and to the action of the left auricle and ventricle of the 
heart in sending it forth through the system to repair waste 
tissues, to promote growth and to incite that physical and 
mental action in the expenditure of its embodied forces, which 
aims at the accomplishment of some given object which, when 
attained, will add something to the sum of previous achieve- 
ments. Being a fifth of itself it also corresponds to the fifth 
degree of each and every other sevenfold scale — for instance, 
the fifth note in the scale of music, the fifth color of the rain- 
bow, and, perhaps more obviously, to the fifth degree of plant- 
life — the flowering degree; for, as the flower opens its petals to 
receive the light and heat of the sun, so human society, in 
this degree of its vital activities, opens its blossoming aspira- 
tions to the sun of a higher, nobler and diviner existence. 
Other and previous interests take cognizance of Use. This 
takes cognizance not only of Use, but of the use of use, which 
is beauty., and even of the use of beauty as the clothing of a love, 
which is the very essence of all things desirable for human 
happiness. 

Again; the wheat, corn, rice, beef, pork, potatoes etc., 
which nature crudely supplies in the first degree, have become 
in the fourth degree (complementary of the first) the bones, 
muscles, tendons, nerves and cellular and fibrous tissues of the 
animal man. The wool, cotton and flax have become his 
clothing; the hides of animals have become his boots and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 249 

shoes; the timber of the forest, the stones of the quarry and 
the clay of the soil formed into bricks constitute his shelter 
from the winds and storms. Strictly physically speaking, there- 
fore, man is an agglomeration of the products of the field, for- 
ests, mines, quarries, waters, etc., and viewed only in this 
light, he is a mere intellectual animal at best, and is some- 
times, it must be confessed, a very swinish one at that. 

It is therefore, the object of this fifth interest of the Body 
Politic, to take this animated, timber-covered, wool-clad mass 
of corn, potatoes, pork, beans and cabbage, and educate, de- 
velop, refine and spiritualize his nature, and make it more 
beautiful and godlike. This may be done by means of schools, 
lectures, libraries, pictures, statuary, music, gardens, flowers, 
parks, ornamental trees and shrubbery adorning every road- 
side; forests replanted on every unarable and unoccupied por- 
tion of the earth that has been barbarously denuded of its foli- 
age — in short, by works of beauty, taste and refinement of 
every kind. A commendable beginning of development in this 
direction has been made in the beautiful parks, public gardens, 
free museums and picture galleries of some of our principal 
cities, and which have already proved themselves fruitful sem- 
inaries of good taste and refinement among the masses of the 
people. 

If therefore, the second interest in our serial classification is 
the interest of Mechanics and Manufactures by which the crude 
products of the earth are, wrought into incipient forms of use 
as food, clothing and shelter of the mere animal man, so this 
fifth interest, including the intellectual and aesthetic arts, is a 
kind of secondary and supra-mechanical and manufacturing in- 
terest, whereby the crude man himself, the agglomeration of 
these earthly materials, is manufactured into a real man, 
worthy of the name — otherwise called 3. gentleman. And so the 



250 THE END OF THE AGES. 

complementary relations between the second and fifth interests 
stand as conspicuously apparent as do tiie complementary re- 
lations between the second and fifth colors of the rainbow, the 
orange and the blue. 

VI. thh: interest of the university, the philosophy, or 
OF ripe wisdom. 

Alas! how, in this age of tinsel and trash, of paint and 
powder, of fustian and bombast, can we sufficiently impress 
the idea that true philosophy and ripe ivisdom, sometuhere and by 
so/ne means developed, is an indispensable interest of the Body 
Politic! But there are times when the universal instincts of 
the people tacitly recognize the fact, whether at other times it 
is obscured and forgotten in the delectations of sensual folly, 
or not. 

In seasons of great public peril, to which all nations are 
liable at longer or shorter intervals, when the timbers of the 
ship of state creak under the racking storm as though about to 
be parted asunder, the frantic cry will go forth — not where 
are our politicians, our successful leaders of cliques and cabals, 
our brilliant orators, or even our great generals, but where are 
the leaders of leaders? where is the pen that is "mightier than 
the sword?" where is the calm, self-poised philosopher? 
where, O, where is the man of that ripe, mature wisdom on 
which all depends for safety? If there ever was a time when 
that cry should go forth throughout our nation, throughout 
England, Russia, France, Germany — all nations — that time is 

UOIU. 

The Wisdom of the Body Politic is in correspondence with 
the function of distribution and assimilation of the protoplas- 
tic elements of the blood of the individual man into the tissues 



THE END OF THE AGES. 25 1 

and organs of the anatomical system, and especially into the 
tissues and compartments of the brain as the common center 
of government for all the other organs. And in that higher 
function of Distribution whereby each tissue and organ receives 
the elements requisite to supply waste and serve the exigencies 
of growth, and whereby the nervous and volitional currents of 
the brain are sent out in myriads of ramifications to vitalize, 
move and direct every organ of the body — we find the comple- 
ment of the third interest, which we have designated as the 
"distribution" of the manufactured and mechanically prepared 
productions of the earth. 

As the brain dominates all parts of the human body, so the 
public Wisdom, as the brain of the grand Man, should oversee, 
adjust, harmonize and rule all interests of the Body Politic 
from lowest to highest. Looking down to the interests of 
Raw Material, it should provide for the greatest desirable 
abundance, and the best possible quality of resources from 
that quarter; adjusting the proportions of forest and arable 
land; teaching its lessons of science in respect to agriculture, 
the compounding and application of fertilizers according to 
the requirements of different soils, the stocking of streams, 
lakes and ponds with choice varieties of fish, etc. It should judi- 
ciously encourage and promote the mechanical and manufac- 
turing arts with due reference to the soil, climate, natural pro- 
ductions and physical requirements of each locality; it should 
provide for the construction and supervise the management of. 
the necessary viaducts of trade, commerce and travel between 
one locality and another; establish a general bureau of statis- 
tics with numerous and wisely systematized ramifications, to 
estimate the needs for each coming year, of this, that or the 
other raw material or manufactured article, and of the means 
and tendencies of the industry of the country to supply the 



252 THE END OF THE AGES. 

same — giving such public advice or direction as may tend to 
prevent a glut or deficiency in the market by this or that other 
class of products; regulate the amount of treasury and bank 
issues according to the aggregate amount of purchasable pro- 
ductions, so that money will never be dear and provisions 
cheap on the one hand, nor money cheap and provisions dear 
on the other — thus preventing speculation, inequalities in the 
rewards of equally meritorious labor, sudden amassings of for- 
tunes on the one hand and business failures on the other, and 
the frequent and universal financial revulsions with which we 
are now so often afflicted. In short, as the Father of the great 
political family, the office of Wisdom should be to see that 
each member of that family shall receive jitstice according to 
each one's constitutional requirements, and according to the 
degree of each one's fidelity to the laws. 

To promote that wisdom which is equal to all these exigencies 
of the Body Politic, institutions should be established and 
abundantly endowed for the study, not so much of classical 
literature in the dead languages or any other language, as of 
the laws by which God rules in the heavens above and in the 
earth beneath and throughout the broad universe. And these 
laws can be duly comprehended only in the light of the science 
of universal correspondences, which, though not yet recog- 
nized in the existing schools, will yet be acknowledged as the 
science of all sciences. 

VII. THE INTEREST OF SPIRITUALITY. 

If it be true, as is generally admitted, that man possesses a 
spiritual and immortal nature — a nature by which he is allied 
to angels and to God, it is, of course, in this that his supreme 
interest resides, and in this all other interests center. It is 



THE END OF THE AGES. 253 

the living reality of which all material forms and conditions are 
the mere ministrants and instrumentalities. All things of 
nature and art constitute the mere house and its furniture; but 
this is the indwelling habitant. It is the center of moral 
gravitation of the man, the society, the nation and the plan- 
etary race, subordinate, of course, to still higher centers and 
the Highest — in correspondence with subordinate and superior 
centers of physical gravitation in the astronomical universe. 
It is the consciousness of, and the reverential and loving com- 
munion with, the Absolute, the Ever Living, the All Wise, 
Beneficent and Eternal Ruler of the universe, and the aspira- 
tion to know, feel and enjoy more and more of him that 
essentially constitutes the spiritual element in human nature. 
If this is lost, then what remains is evanescent and scarcely 
worth having. Without this "anchor, sure and steadfast," we 
are adrift and floating we know not whither. Without spirit- 
uality, in short, with its faith in a beneficent overruling Power, 
and confidence in the harmony, stability and impartiality of its 
laws, everything human would fall into disorder; society 
would disintegrate, and mankind would gradually degenerate 
into savagism and brutality. 

The religionists of the day have lately been making diligent 
efforts to have the z^i?;-*^!;?/ recognition of a God embodied in the 
Constitution of the United States. This impulse springs from 
a true and noble element in human nature, but the/6';-w which 
it takes is such as to render it, to say the least, a matter of 
popular indifference, and to some persons even obno.xious. It 
is not likely that God would feel flattered if the name by which 
His English speaking people know Him were written in our 
national Constitution, nor that He would be offended if it were 
left out, while placing it there would be tantamount to an ar- 
bitrary enforcement of a belief in Him upon the minds of those 



254 THE END OF THE AGES. 

who, though subject to the constitution, may yet not be con- 
vinced by reason and intuition and thus by the direct authority of 
God Himself. And yet God must be in the constitution — the 
unwritten Constitution, which is superior to the written one. 
But when we shall have duly recognized and consented to be 
governed by the laws prescribing the organization and govern- 
ing the divine structure of a true social system in correspond- 
ence with all other perfect systems in nature, each in its 
degree, we need no longer concern ourselves upon the question 
of "God in the Constitution," for He will be there — pervad- 
ing, vitalizing, inspiring and giving force and direction to 
every part, organ and atom, as truly as m any other divinely 
constituted system whatsoever. And then the political system 
will be truly as one grand man and that man will be a temple 

OF THE LIVING GOD. 

In sketching these seven grand Interests of the Body Politic 
as naturally the centralizi^ig points for the accretion of its form, 
we have given the basic outlines of its Anatomy and Physiology ; 
but for a more perfect description of the details of its ideal 
structure and operations we must refer the reader to the six or 
seven chapters next ensuing. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CLASSIFICATION OF ORGANIZABLE AND CORRELATIVE GUILDS. 

Working forces of these several departments; These almost self-defined; Enu- 
merated in serial order; Their offices; Progress and interchangeability of 
positions— Each in the position for which nature fits him. 

THE seven great leading interests of the Political and 
Social structure having thus been outlined in the natural 
order, the corresponding classes of the population, or guilds as 
they may be called, on whom dependence must be placed to 
furnish the working forces of these several departments, 
stand almost self-defined. These, of course are: i. Primary 
laborers. 2, Mechanics and Manufacturers. 3, Distributors. 4, Cap- 
italists and Financiers, or holders and circulators of wealth, es- 
pecially in the form of money. 5, Improvers and Refiners., in- 
cluding Educators and all who are devoted to the aesthetic arts, 
of whatever kind. 6, Philosophers or men of tried, proved and 
acknowledged practical and philanthropic Wisdom. 7, Me7i of 
spiritual gifts and culture., victors over temptation, who are cap- 
able of standing in the gap between this world and the spiritual 
world, and acting as spiritual guides and advisers to others 
and as physicians both of soul and body. 

If it should be noticed that we uniformly use the word '■'men" 
in speaking of these several classes, we will explain by saying, 
that we use it not in the sense of the I-atin "z'/r, " which means 
exclusively a juale, but in the sense of " homo," which means a 



256 THE END OF THE AGES. 

human being, applying to eitlier sex. And we furthermore 
distinctly assert the natural rights of the female half of the 
human race as in all respects equally binding and inviolable 
with those of the male half, whatever distinction nature may 
have made as to the adaptabilities of the two, to particular 
classes of employment. 

The only farther remarks deemed necessary in definition of 
the relative positions and offices of these several distinct 
classes are briefly the following: By the first, second, third 
and fourth classes here mentioned we do not mean the identi- 
cal classes mentioned in the same numerical order in the 
analysis given in the last chapter but one. It would, however, 
be possible, if not easy, under the social system and methods 
now proposed, that the indolent devotees to the natural wants, 
passions and propensities of the passing moment, which con- 
stitute the first class, instead of being left to prey upon society 
or supported in prisons as at present, should be utilized, either 
persuasively or compulsorily, in the employments of the first 
class of the present series, supposing the same to be organized 
in its natural position in the scale. And. so it would be possi- 
ble that the pugnacious and disorderly clanship of the second 
class of that series, should be restrained from lawless manifes- 
tations and its forces preserved and directed to useful ends, in 
the second of this. And so of the domineering self-will of the 
third; and the listless dead-level democracy of the foni-th of 
that series — all may be organized, put in their proper places, 
and utilized in the natural orders set forth in the present series. 

Of the first class mentioned in the present series — namely, 
the Primary Laborers, as related to the interests of Ra7v 
Material, it may, moreover, be said, that they are not nec- 
essarily confined in their working industries, to the fcjrests as 
lumbermen; to the mines and quarries asdelvers; to the waters 



THE END OF THE AGES. 257 

as fishermen ; or to the fields as tillers of the soil ; but they may 
be employed as helpers of mechanics and manufacturers; as 
herdsmen, hostlers, drivers, sailors, waiters, messengers, etc. 
The secoftd, third, fourth and fifth classes are by implication 
sufficiently defined as instrumentalities of the corresponding 
interests mentioned in the last chapter, namely the mechanical 
and manufacturing, the distributing, the financial, and the 
educational and aesthetic interests. 

Of the sixth class — the philanthropic philosopher class — and 
its indispensable functions in the Body Politic, there is, as yet, 
no adequate popular comprehension or appreciation, especially 
among a people each one of whom is so much inclined to erect 
himself into a philosopher for all his own personal purposes. 
This class, however, whether always distinctly identifiable or 
not, really consists of those who impersonate the highest wis- 
dom and patriotism that has been developed in the particular 
nation to which they belong; and it usually rests with this class 
to make its benign influence felt solely by the moral and con- 
vincing power which it exerts over the minds of others. The 
instincts of nations, however, have always more or less clearly 
recognized its existence — just as the instincts of children al- 
ways recognize their true parents — and it has been designated 
by various titles, such as the "elders of the people," the 
"magi," the "presbuteroi," the "patricians," etc. In times of 
great apprehension for the public safety, this class, always 
comparatively few in numbers, will be sought out, and ♦■heir 
counsels will have great weight, — unless, indeed, the prevail- 
ing political and social corruptions are such as to close the 
public conscience to all wise counsels. 

It should be added, however, that no one can properly be 
considered a wise philosopher, or a safe counsellor of the 
people, especially in that future to which we are tending, who, 

17 



258 THE END OF THE AGES. 

in addition to a sincere love of mankind, has not some clear 
comprehension of the system and laws of nature, and the cor- 
respondences of degrees and series which run universally 
through the various planes of existence. This species of knowl- 
edge, heretofore lying beyond the sphere of the comprehen- 
sion of the most intelligent, but of which the key is now found, 
will hereafter be more and more cultivated and its proficient 
students will be acknowledged as the wisest and safest guides 
in all matters of political and social government. 

In designating the seventh class as those who most fittingly 
represent the common instinct of mankind of an overruling 
power, and our responsibility to the same, of the connection of 
this world with an unseen world beyond, we have no necessary 
reference to the clergy of any of the existing religious denom- 
inations. Nor would we have any of these excluded from this 
office who vadij prove themselves qualified iox its duties. It is no 
recommendation to men or women for this position, that they 
belong conventionally to some sacerdotal order, or that they 
are Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists or 
Universalists. Nor should an attachment to either of these, 
or any other, religious order necessarily exclude them, but all 
will depend upon the question. What are their God-given 
qualifications and personal acquirements ? For these are the 
prophets and prophetesses of human society whom God ordains, 
and not men or sects. They have existed among all nations, 
often silently, secretly and unknown to the worldly wise, and 
yet they have been and are the depositories and disseminators 
of that popular consciousness and belief of an all pervading, 
invisible and governing power which the more sensual minds 
of the world are so ready to decry as "superstition," such, 
indeed, it may be when it is perverted by ignorance, demon- 
craft and popular folly; and yet so important is the veritable 



THE END OF THE AGES. 259 

reality of this matter, that a wise man of old has said, "Where 
there is no vision, the people perish."* As the nature of the 
supernal "gifts" sometimes unquestionably exercised by this 
class becomes more scientifically and philosophically under- 
stood, thus guarding the power against becoming the source 
of superstition, or being made the engine of selfish priestly 
rule, it will, by general consent, be exalted to the position 
which it naturally holds in the moral government of the world, 
and will form the scientific nexus between earth and heaven 
and between the human and Divine. But until it shall have 
become better developed and more clearly and scientifically 
defined than it now is, it will have to be left to its own course 
of natural development, gaining followers where it may; and 
even "false prophets" will have to be tolerated until they are 
tried and found wanting. 

It is not the intention to convey the thought, that these dif- 
ferent classes in co-operative society are fenced off from each 
other by such unyielding walls and boundary lines as to pre- 
vent all interfusion and transference of stations. On the con- 
trary, the humblest delver with the spade and pick axe, has 
something of the mechanic, something of the merchant, 
something of the financier, something of the artist, 
philosopher and prophet in him, though such may not 
yet have attained, and indeed may never attain, to any 
relatively conspicuous degree of development. The way is 
open however, and should always be held open, for ascent 
to the higher degrees, according to natural talent, ambition 
and industry. The laborer of this year may, by skill, prudence 
and industry become the capitalist of the next, and the penni- 
less and ignorant youth who dwells in the rural hut, may, in 
maturer years, occupy the palace or be seated in the halls of 

*Prov. XXIX. 18. 



26o THE END OF THE AGES. 

legislation — provided his endowments and pursuits shall have 
furnished the conditions of such an ascent. Each person oc- 
cupies, or should occupy, the position for which the most 
strongly developed powers of his nature fit him, the other 
faculties and powers common to humanity, being, in his case, 
and for the time being, tributary to these. 

On this ground, as well as on higher grounds, there is an in- 
tercommunicability of interests, sympathies, hopes, aspira- 
tions, pains and pleasures between all states and conditions of 
our Common Humanity, and also an interdependence of the 
different parts of the grand whole, which will be still more 
fully illustrated in what follows. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THIS SYSTEM TESTED AND CONFIRMED BY FARTHER HARMONIOUS 

CORRELATIONS, AND CORRESPONDENCES IN NATURE 

AND HISTORY. 

Previous classifications all inclusive; Social machinery proved; Additional and 
special correspondences — With the nutritive system; Mouth and teeth of the 
Grand Man to be specially cared for; The gross divisions of the anatomy, 
from feet upward; The political feet to be tenderly cared for — Correspond- 
ence with the senses; "With the mental faculties; With the animal kingdom 
beneath man; Absolute harmony of the Series; Mutual necessities of its 
parts; Many members and one Body, as in the Christian Church; The 
Community responsible for crime; Crime would soon cease under such an 
organization. 

THE seven great cardinal interests of human society on which 
all true political and social systems must be built, and 
the seven corresponding guilds or classes of people who con- 
stitute the working instrumentalities of these interests, have 
thus been clearly outlined and demonstrated in the light of the 
law of degrees, series, correspondences and complementary 
relations. And it will be observed that in these serial classifi- 
cations the scale is complete as a whole, and in all its parts. 
There is not even a modification or special aspect of human 
social interests which is not included under some one or an- 
other, or all, of these general titles; and there is not in any 
nation, or in the whole human race, any normal class of 
persons outside of the classes mentioned. Imbeciles, lunatics 



262 THE END OF THE AGES. 

and persons disabled by deformities or disease are negations 
and congenital adjuncts of all classes, but they are not sepa- 
rate classes of themselves. And when the new and natural 
system of society now proposed comes into thorough working 
order, even these will almost wholly disappear. Criminals 
and incorrigible idlers of whatever grade, are abnormal and 
have no personal rights in any class, except the negative right 
to the kindly efforts of all classes to reform them. 

The social machinery, with its structural harmonies and 
working forces here set forth, has already been demonstrated 
as the true one, by its correspondences with a variety of typical 
sub-systems and autonomies included in the one grand har- 
monious system of nature. The exemplifications of these 
analogies and correspondences might be indefinitely multiplied, 
but with little use, perhaps, except to the profoundest and 
most scientific minds. There are a few special aspects of the 
argument in this direction which may, however, be profitably 
exhibited in addition to the foregoing. One of these consists 
of a more specific exposition of the organic and physiological 
functions of the Grand Man in comparison to those of the in- 
dividual. Thus t\\t first cVdss, the Primary Laborers, as related 
to the Interests of Raw Material, constitutes what may be called 
the Mouth of the Grand Man, with teeth and salivary glands, 
whereby the materials of the external universe are taken out 
of the state of nature and carried through their first stage of 
transformation preparatory to ultimate appropriation. The 
second cXdiSs, as Mechanics and Manufacturers, and thus digestors 
of the crude materials placed in their hands by the y?;-.r/ class, 
constitute the stomach of the Grand Man. The third class, as 
Distributers, including carriers, warehousers, merchants, etc., 
form the duodenu?n and i?itestinal system of the grand man, with 
its myriads of little doors and by-stations distributed all along 



THE END OF THE AGES. 263 

the passage way, whereby it gives out its floating contents. 
T^i^ fourth class, consisting of financiers and capitalists or 
handlers and circulators of wealth, are the mesentery and 
thoracic ducts, the veins and the right heart cavities of the 
Grand Man, and as such are its proximate blood-makers and 
circulators. The fifth class — the improvers, educators, refiners 
and beautifiers — and as such the cesthetic class, are the lungs and 
the left heart cavities and thus the inspirers and aspirers 
whereby the blood of the Grand Man is properly sanguified and 
arterialized and sent forth through the system to perform its 
uses. The sixth class, consisting of philosophers and men of 
philanthropic and practical wisdom, are the proximately or- 
ganized class, which take up the vital protoplasm of the blood 
from the arterioles, and build it into the harmoniously corre- 
lated tissues and organs of the system. The seventh, which is 
distinctively the psychological and spiritual class, and as such 
being also the last of the series, it is most intimately related to 
the octave first, and is to the Grand Man what the universal 
glandular system is to the individual man, whereby all the 
digestive, vitalizing, potentializing, generative and regenera- 
tive fluids of the system are secreted, the highest of which are 
concerned in the production of the new being. It is, there- 
fore, in the supreme sense the organizing, generating and 
vitalizing class. 

As all these forms, processes and metamorphoses, have their 
keynote^ and thus take their distinctive characteristics and their 
tendencies for health or disease, in the 7?;-^-/ stage, represented 
by the mouth and its organs, it would be well that society as 
the Grand Man should take primary and special care that its 
mouth and teeth, represented by the first class, should always 
be in good order, and especially to remember that a raging 
toothache or an alveolar abcess throws the whole system out of 



264 THE END OF THE AGES. 

harmony, besides interfering with the office of mastication 
upon which the whole depends for appropriate nourishment. 

In another aspect of the subject, the grossest divisions of 
the anatomical structure present the same social correspond- 
ences. I. The primary workers, contacting as they do im- 
mediately with the earth, are the Feet of the Grand Man. 2. 
The skilled workers (Mechanics and Manufacturers) are the Legs. 
3. The distributers (distributing, as these latter do, the 
forces of locomotion to the whole body) are the Thighs. 4. 
The Financiers., or possessors and circulators of wealth, are the 
Abdomen with its organs and fountains of supplies to the body. 
5. The Educational and Esthetic classes (inspirational and 
aspirational as they are) constitute the Thorax and its or- 
gans. 6. The Philosophic or Wisdom class constitute the 
Head diud Brain. And 7. The Spiritual class, embracing as it 
does the spiritual principle of all classes, constitutes the living 
inhabitant that dwells within this whole structure, and for 
which the whole structure was built. 

In this view again it becomes an emphatic monition of wis- 
dom, that the Grand Man should take special and tender care 
of the feet, and keep them warm and dry and thus guard 
against political colds, coughs, asthmas, neuralgias, rheuma- 
tisms, and a great variety of aches, pains and disorders which 
arise either directly or indirectly from an exposure of these 
humble and useful organs. 

Again, as to the sentient nature of the Grand Man: the first 
class answers to the sense of Touch or physical feeling; the 
second to Taste; the third to Sight; the fourth to Hearing; 
the fifth to Smell; the sixth, in which the nerves of all the other 
senses converge into the common sensorium, corresponds to 
the common, the mental or psychic sense; and the seventh class 
answers to the spiritual sense. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 265 

Moreover, in respect to the full series of mental or psychic 
faculties, in their natural order of sequence: the first class cor- 
responds to Perception; the second to Conception; the third to 
Memory; the fourth to Imagination; the fifth to Reflection; 
the sixth to Ratioscination; and the seventh to Intuition. 

Or, descending one septenary degree in the unitary structure 
of the Grand System of Nature: the first class corresponds to 
animals characteristically of a cellular structure, beginning 
with the amoeba and ending with the starfish; the second 
answers to animals of a tubular structure {articulata and Mol- 
lusca of Cuvier), beginning with the worm and ending with trilo- 
bites and lobsters; the third, to animals of a ventral and verte- 
bral structure, fishes (still marine); the fourth to amphibians 
(born tadpoles, which are fishes, and assuming air-breathing 
organs, legs and feet afterwards); the fifth, to soarers in the 
air, embracing flying insects, pterodactyles and birds; the sixth 
corresponds to mammals, culminating in the merely animal 
man. The seventh answers to the crowning creation in the 
spiritual or regenerated man, knowing God and immortality, 
and holding dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of 
the air and the fishes of the sea, as typified in the various pas- 
sions and propensities of his own nature. 

These correspondences might be pursued to an indefinite ex- 
tent through other discrete planes of creation; but enough has 
perhaps been said to show that the social structure which we have 
outlined is really the one and only scheme of nature produced upon 
the plane of human society. As such, we submit that it is the 
only true, scientific and philosophical system, hence the only 
one that can permanently succeed, and indeed the only one 
for the establishment of which our efforts may be wisely or use- 
fully applied. Society cannot be truly organized except on 
this scale. 



266 THE END OF THE AGES. 

There is one particular feature of this system which should 
by all means be distinctly noted and thoroughly appreciated, 
and that is the absolute harmony of the whole series of So- 
cietary Interests which we have pointed out, and also of the 
different classes or comprehensive guilds of mankind that are 
correlated with them, and which furnish their working forces — 
nay, not only their mere harmony, but their absolute and in- 
dispensable usefulness and necessity to each other, and their 
coordination as vital parts of one greater whole. For how 
could any one of these great Interests of the Body Politic be 
left out without disaster and even virtual ruin to all the others, 
and to the whole Body? How, for example, could the me- 
chanic do without the farmer, or the farmer without 
the mechanic? and how could either of them do without 
the railroad man, the boatman, the sailor, the storage 
man, the merchant? How could labor do without cap- 
ital, or how could capital be created without labor, any more 
than the blood-making organs could do without materials to 
make blood, or the blood and its products do without the 
blood-making organs? And what would the whole system be 
worth without a refining, beautifying taste, a progressive, 
kindly aspiration, a directing wisdom and a spiritualizing sen- 
timent? If the system should be injured in one of these parts 
it would necessarily be injured in all; and if benefited in one, it 
would be benefited in all. 

And this is good Christianity as well as good political 
science. The great author of Christianity prayed in behalf of 
his disciples, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art 
in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us — I in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be made /^//^r/ m one." 
John XVII. 21-23. 

And so the apostle to the Gentiles said: "For as we have 



THE END OF THE AGES. 267 

many members in one body, and all members have not the 
same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and 
every one members one of another." Rom. XII. 4, 5. Again, 
"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the 
members of that one body, being many, are one body, 
so also is Christ. And if they were all one member, 
where were the body? But now are they many mem- 
bers, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto 
the hand, I have no need of thee. Nay, much more those 
members of the body which seem to be more feeble are nec- 
essary, * * * That there should be no schism in the body, but 
that the members should have the same care one for another. 
And whether one mettiber suffer^ all the metnbers suffer, all the mem- 
bers suffer with it, or one member be ho7iored, all the jnetnbers rejoice 
with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in par- 
ticular." I Cor. XII. 

If it be alleged that these passages relate exclusively to 
the Christian Church, we reply, that the Christian Church, if 
it has any validity whatsoever, is a divineorder of society, and if the 
author of Christianity is at the same time the author of the 
universal system of nature, then we may expect to find the 
indications of the same governing principles and the same 
methods of working in one as in the other, connecting the two 
together as unison octaves in the same divine musical compo- 
sition. And to this it may be added, that Christianity has 
claims to be considered a perfect divine system 07ily as it 
symbolizes the plans and workings of God in universal nature. 

If farther proof were required, that the social structure here 
hypothetically set forth, is the true one, we have it in the fact 
that if, in such a structure, one interest, class, or even the 
humblest individual member should suffer, the whole body 
would of necessity suffer, more or less; and that if any good 



268 THE END OF THE AGES. 

should come to any one part, either great or small, it would be 
a good to all in some appreciable or inappreciable degree. Fur- 
thermore, even the crimes committed in a community entail a re- 
sponsibility upon the same that is far more grave and serious 
than has been suspected, for it is the business of the Social 
Body so to regulate and maintain its moral health, in all its 
parts, as to exclude, so far as possible, all motives and oppor- 
tunities for the commission of crime. And so of poverty, idle- 
ness, drunkenness, want, prostitution and disease. It is a trite, 
but true saying, that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound 
of cure;" and if the sums that are spent in detecting and pun- 
ishing crime were wisely spent in preventing its commission, 
life and property would be far more safe; both the moral and 
economic interests of the community would, from the start, be 
far better served, and the fountains of moral and social evil 
would, in the end, be almost, if not entirely dried up. 

To the accomplishment of this very desirable result, the 
social system here hypothetically set forth would, in its spirit 
and working machinery, be perfectly adapted; and it would be 
safe to predict that not many years would elapse after its per- 
fect inauguration before every prison and poorhouse in the 
land would be closed for want of an occupant. And if it should 
still require the lapse of several generations to eradicate the 
hereditary taints from the body of humanity, we would have, 
during that time, instead of prisons, simply hospitals for the 
treatment of the morally and intellectually diseased and im- 
becile. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE TRUE POLITICAL GOVERNMENT, 
AND HOW IT MAY BE ORGANIZED. 

Harmony of interests secured; No hope in existing parties; Proposed new 
basis of Representation — Declaration for the new departure; Sources of 
Interest Representation, and how available; Proposed new Primary 
movements; Guilds represented at nominating Conventions; How the 
machinery would work and with what results; An objection answered; 
The rights of women; No present change in organic laws needed. 

T T ERE then are the ideal outlines of a Social System which we 
■^ ■*■ have no hesitation in submitting as thoroughly scientific, 
not only in its generals, but in all its essential particulars thus 
far brought to view. Those who may feel inclined to dispute 
it will please answer intelligently, and with a broad compre- 
hension of universal principles, the question, Wherein does it 
conflict with the grand scheme of creation and divine govern- 
ment? Is it not indeed that identical scheme itself correspon- 
dentially projected upon the plane of human society ? And if 
so, how is it possible for it to be otherwise than true, practi- 
cable and of the highest importance ? With so many witnesses 
to its truth in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, in the 
systems of the cosmic universe, in the human soul within and 
the human body without, in the animal, vegetable and mineral 
kingdoms, and with all its chords and harmonies and sym- 
phonies mingling with and forming a part of the universal 
"music of the spheres," we commend it to thoughtful readers 



270 THE END OF THE AGES. 

without the slightest misgivings, and with perfect confidence 
in the Jina/ and universal acceptance of its essential principles 
whatever may be its immediate fate at the hands of those who 
are unfamiliar with and who have not the patience or ability to 
study and comprehend the philosophy on which it is founded. 
And if it be true, it is most certainly practicable. Indeed, all 
truth is practicable and, except in a (5«^ sense, nothing is prac- 
ticable but truth. 

And now that this grandest as well as simplest of sociologi- 
cal truths — so simple indeed, that the wonder is that it has 
not been apprehended before — has had what is deemed a suffi- 
cient exposition for the present; little more remains for the 
completion of our task, than to indicate the general method by 
which the new system may be put into practical operation. 
But before proceeding to give that indication, we most 
earnestly request the reader to consider once more the teach- 
ings of his own common sense, as well as the arguments we 
have presented, to prove — that in a naturally organized and 
healthy Body Politic, conflicts of interest between the different 
classes of citizens who form its working machinery, are utterly 
impossible — as much so as conflicts of interests between the differ- 
ent organs, parts and tissues of the well formed and healthy body 
of an individual man. Conflicts there are, at present, we 
know full well, and from the long continuance and apparently 
irreparable nature of these, many superficial minds have come 
to the conclusion that they are normal and unavoidable, and 
hence that all theories looking to their ultimate harmonization 
are Utopian and impracticable. But these conflicts all arise 
from the present horribly diseased condition of our Body 
Politic, and when this is restored to health, these all will 
naturally and necessarily disappear. 

The idea of perfect harmony between all the great leading 



THE END OF THE AGES. 27 I 

interests, being pre-established as a necessary characteristic of 
a true social system, we must ask the candid reader to dis- 
miss all vain delusions that may have heretofore possessed his 
mind concerning any possible sources of hope for this har- 
mony of interests and for the health of the nation as contained 
in the principles or workings of either of the two great 
political parties now existing. We repeat what has been else- 
where submitted in another form: That whatever uses these 
parties may have subserved during their earlier years, when 
each one was animated by a great idea and purpose, the mission 
of each one of them has now for several years been practically 
fulfilled to the very end. Hence, for all great national pur- 
poses they are both practically dead, and the only care that 
honest and patriotic citizens can legitimately exercise towards 
them, is to see that their putrefying carcasses shall be speedily 
buried. Flee from them, O fellow citizens — flee from them as 
Lot fled from Sodom; and be sure that ye look not backwards 
lest ye be turned into pillars of salt. 

PROPOSED NEW BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 

But for these old, worn out, and mischief-working political 
methods, what do the system and laws of nature propose as a 
substitute ? Reader, in view of the principles we have dis- 
cussed and we think established beyond reasonable doubt, 
please ask yourself this question, and see if your own reason 
and intuition do not return an answer which, in the main, will 
be correct. "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and 
in thy heart," and it only needs to be given voice in order 
to be accepted by all minds healthily constituted and properly 
enlightened. And the voice of reason and the dictates of a 
common Law that runs through all nature plainly conspire in 



272 THE END OF THE AGES. 

urging the following Declaration as the true and proper point 
of the New Departure \ viz. : 

In the constituency and government of the body 
politic, all the great comprehensive and vital interests 
of that body should be fully represented; and such 
should constitute the only basis of representation. 

Of course the several classes of citizens heretofore defined 
as specially allied, each to some one or other of these specific 
interests, should be considered as the authoritative sources 
and constituents of this representation. 

But if, without even a word of argument being necessary, 
this may be taken as the self-evidently natural and hence only 
tnte basis of representation, how false is that which has come 
to be recognized in the old System! In that the prejudices, 
brutish passions and purchased votes of the insensate mob; the 
partisan claims and rivalries of barbarian rings, clans and 
cliques; the ambitious aspirations of cunning and selfish dema- 
gogues, and the interests, real or fancied, of different terri- 
torial districts and sections without regard, or in opposition, to 
the interests of others — form the chief sources of representa- 
tion in our legislative, judiciary and executive departments; — 
whereas it is evident that not one of these can enter, as such, 
into the constituency of the government except as an element 
of conflict and disturbance, and thus of disease and demorali- 
zation to the whole body. But on the other hand, if the gov- 
ernment be constituted as now proposed, its workings must of 
necessity in the main be equal and just; and even such imper- 
fections as from a lack of practical wisdom may, at any time be 
temporarily manifest in its operations, will be endued with a 
power of certain and effectual self-correction which experience 
will quickly develop. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 273 

SOURCES OF REPRESENTATION AND HOW AVAILABLE? 

How, then, shall these several sources of Interest-Represen- 
tation be made practically available as harmonious parts of the 
new political machine and called together into the common 
work of constructing the new and better order of things ? In 
view of preceding expositions, this question, too, is so simple 
as to almost answer itself. Plainly something like the follow- 
ing is the plan that should be pursued, subject, of course, to 
correction by experience and a constantly growing wisdom, as 
all other modes of proceeding should be. 

PROPOSED NEW PRIMARY MOVEMENTS IN POLITICS. 

Let each of the seven correlative guilds heretofore defined, 
as allied respectively to the seven great Interests of the Body 
Politic, organize itself — whenever and wherever practicable, 
and always sofa?- as practicable — as a coordinate and coequal part 
of the great Body. The object of such organization, when 
brought to a state of ultimate perfection, should be twofold — 
First, to provide representatives who shall have an equal share 
with representatives of other interests in the constituency of 
the municipal, township, county, state and general govern- 
ments; and secondly, so soon as it may become practicable to 
establish a quasi zMX-onova^ or self-government of its own mem- 
bers, subordinate to the ordinances and laws made by the higher 
degrees of government and to the constitution and laws of the 
national government as the highest. 

Experience has shown that the value of a vote at any elec- 
tion is determined almost wholly by the fiat of a caucus or 
primary election and nominating convention previously holden, 
whereby candidates are specially selected from the great 
promiscuous mass upon whom the votes of the people may be 
concentrated. The selfish, disorderly, fraudulent and violent 

18 



274 THE END OF THE AGES. 

manner in which these candidates are, under the old system, 
often placed before the people, has been shown, in a previous 
chapter, to be the chief source of our political corruptions, 
and of the incapacity, venality, selfish partisanship and general 
prostitution of our law-making bodies and our judicial and 
executive officers. And besides all this, even the exceptionally 
honest and capable public officers that are sometimes elected, 
are powerless to serve, except in most chaotic and indefinite 
ways, any of those great vital Interests of the body politic 
which it is the sole duty of public officers to serve. 

HOW THE NEW MACHINERY WOULD WORK. 

All these evils and deficiencies would be corrected in the 
most effective possible manner, by the easy, harmonious and 
certain operation of the primary political machinery now pro- 
posed. The natural manner of its working would be sub- 
stantially as follows: whenever a public officer is to be elected 
having duties to perform in which the general interests of the 
Body Politic is involved, let each one of these several organi- 
zations, based respectively upon the several great interests of 
the Body Politic, appoint in such manner as they may choose, 
a number of delegates equal to that appointed by each of the 
others; and send them properly accredited to the common 
nomination convention to designate suitable candidates for the 
suffrages of the people at the general election. 

The consequence would be that the Primary Industrial 
classes as related to the interest of raw material, would dele- 
gate only their best and wisest men. The Fabricators, includ- 
ing mechanics, machinists, and manufacturers, would send 
forth only their best men. And so of the Distributors, includ- 
ing railroad men, shippers and carriers of all kinds, with ware- 
housers, merchants and traders; and so of the classes centering 



THE END OF THE AGES. 275 

in every other interest — each for its own credit, and for the 
best representation of its own specific interest, would send 
forth only its best men. And what would we have then as the 
sum of these delegations ? A nominating convention com- 
posed, not of unscrupulous political tricksters and their venal 
and subservient tools, but of the best and wisest of men., em- 
bracing in their several specialties all classes of real and sub- 
stantial interests of mankind, to conserve and promote which, 
as we have seen, is the only legitimate object of human govern- 
ment. And perceiving the unity of these combined interests 
as concentering in the best good of every individual man, 
woman and child in the community, they would select as their 
nominee for the public office to be filled — not a specialist, not 
a vender of official influence and patronage; not a third or 
fourth rate man in point of morality, intelligence and patri- 
otism, as is now often the case — but they would select one 
who in their judgment is the wisest, the fittest and the best 
to serve all interests iti harmo?iy. And then an election to a 
public office, and even an appointment as a delegate to a nom- 
inating convention, would be an honor, not to be raffled for, 
or snatched by fraud and violence, but to be worked for and de- 
served a.s the only condition of its being obtained. 

A nomination to an office under these conditions would al- 
most necessarily be equivalent to an election; but the propo- 
sition to erect this "Nominating Convention" at once into an 
Electoral College, would be premature and should be left al- 
together to the suggestions of mature experience. 

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED. 

Owing to the obscurity with which novelty sometimes 
invests an otherwise exceedingly plain proposition, we 



276 THE END OF THE AGES. 

will perhaps be confronted with the objection, that the organ- 
ization of the primary political machinery here proposed would 
be difficult inasmuch as some of the classes of citizens operat- 
ing in certain of their different interests are subdivided into 
diverse and dissimilar branches having apparently only a re- 
mote connection with each other, while some useful members 
of the Body Politic are not distinctively identified with either 
one of these interests more than with another; and that the two 
highest interests — Philosophy and Spirituality — have as yet 
no w^ell defined and universally recognized representatives in 
any class. But no difficulties can arise from these or any other 
branches of the general problem, which experience and the ex- 
ercise of a little common sense may not speedily and easily 
overcome. It should be particularly noted, that in a system like 
the one proposed, where the interest of each person and class 
is involved in, and dependent upon, the interest of every other 
person and class, there would be no 7-easonable ground for Jealousy 
or distrtisf on the part of one class towards any other, and the effort 
of each would naturally be to promote all interests as the best 
means of securing specifically its own. Therefore the intelli- 
gent desire of each and all would be that each of these interests 
should be represented in the wisest atid best possible ffianner, not 
only in the convention, but in the government and all its 
branches; and for this one object they would all work in har- 
mony. 

These considerations greatly aid in the solution of the 
difficulties suggested; and the objections urged may be farther 
met in this wise: First, The class engaged in the production of 
Raw Material, for example, is in some large sections of the 
country almost exclusively composed of farmers. In such 
cases the constituency of the first branch of the nominating 
convention may be made up almost wholly from that source, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 277 

allowing a voice in the appointment of their delegates to such 
miscellaneous primary laborers as may be found mixed with 
the population. In sections where a considerable number of 
the population are working in the coal fields, or mines of metal, 
or quarries of slate and building stones, or in cutting and haul- 
ing lumber, or in fishing, these with the farmers of the same dis- 
trict organized in their several specialties of the one general 
interest of Raw Production, might meet, either "^// ■masse'' or 
by delegates in a sub-convention to appoint common delegates 
to the higher convention. And the same course might be pur- 
sued by the various specialties of the mechanical and manu- 
facturing pursuits: and so of the special branches of every 
other general clasS: 

^ Again, there are persons whose employments seem to be 
cotinective and auxiliary to some two or more of these several 
interests and classes, and not distinctly allied to one more than 
to another, as for example, the helpers of mechanics; the em- 
ployees of the railroad companies, as engineers, conductors, 
brakemen and flagmen; the clerks and book-keepers in mer- 
chantile and manufacturing establishments, etc. In an elec- 
toral systern basedon the theory of the highest good of each 
and all, these should be allowed to register themselves with 
this or that particular interest or class as they may choose. 

Publishers,- editors and others engaged in literary pursuits; 
scientists, civil engineers, lawyers and physicians; as the aux- 
iliaries of . a// interests, should be allowed' to' give in' their 
suffrages with the fi^rst, second, third, fourth or fifth class as 
they may choose, or with the sixth or sev'enth according to 
their conceded qualifications. -• ~ , '• • '•■ i ,'. ; ..'^ 

But then, thereare-many districts Which db not afford, at least 
in anything like equal proportions of populati'on, the variety "of 
guilds from which a. perfect representation of all interests may 



278 THE END OF THE AGES. 

be derived. What is to be done in such cases ? Manifestly it 
would be unwise and far worse than futile for the guild that is 
in the majority to attempt to use the force of their preponder- 
ant numbers for their own exclusive benefit, leaving allied in- 
terests uncared for, between which and themselves there is a 
mutual dependence for exchange of benefits. For were it not 
for the existence of classes who, for example, are tiot farmers, 
to consume the products of the farms, and to furnish the 
farmers in return, with needed commodities which the latter 
themselves cannot produce, a large portion of these very farm- 
ers would soon be compelled to turn mechanics, manufacturers, 
railroad men, etc. Besides, large farming districts, remote 
from the principal existing markets, as those of Illinois, Iowa, 
Minnesota, Kansas, etc., are deeply interested in attracting a 
large manufacturing population to their midst, for the sake of 
the more advantageous exchange of mutual productions than 
can be carried on under the necessary expenses of transporta- 
tion to more distant localities, as at present. 

The same remarks equally apply to any and every other pre- 
ponderant sectional interest; as to the manufacturing cities of 
Lowell and Lawrence, for instance, and thus it becomes man- 
ifest from this as from all other points of view that every 
sectional or otherwise distinctive class of people tributary by 
its industry, talent or otherwise to the general interests of the 
Body Politic, is bound by a wise regard for its own welfare, to 
foster and encourage every other natural interest besides that to 
which it is specifically allied, and to see that every interest is 
duly and wisely represented in all branches of the government, 
except, perhaps, the mere local government which belongs to 
their own specialty. For of course, if a township composed 
exclusively of farmers, or a ward of a city composed wholly of 
manufacturers, should desire to elect a constable, or justice of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 279 

the peace, or any other merely local officer, there would be no 
absolute need for any complex basis of interest-representation. 

Still, it most probably, not to say certainly, will happen, 
especially in the earlier stages of the effort to put this plan into 
practice, that conventions to nominate officers of the state and 
national governments, will be without accredited delegates to 
represent some one or more of the several interests of the Body 
Politic. The deficiencies that will be most likely to occur will 
be in the representation of the sixth and sevetith interest — that 
of the University, the Philosophy or practical Wisdom, and that 
of Spirituality. In all such cases and whatever be the lack in 
the circle of representatives, the Convention itself should fill the 
vacancy by inviting universally honored citizens to seats, or in such 
other ways as it may deem proper, so that all interests may be 
represented as harmoniously and fully as possible, before pro- 
ceeding to its main deliberations, and so that the best men only 
may be selected as candidates for offices in which all interests 
are to be served in harmony. 

Indeed, a convention even i'^'Z/'-constituted on these principles, 
if composed of persons distinguished for intelligence, public 
spirit and substantial moral worth, would, in general, have far 
greater weight in the minds of the more intelligent and worthy 
classes of voters, than the fiats of the existing corrupt and 
fraudulent primaries, which are generally pre-determined by 
the secret caucuses of political tricksters who practically own 
the "machine," and know how to run it. But no convention 
need be self-constituted except, perhaps, in some cases by way 
of initiating the proposed movement, or except in cases of an 
utter apathy in the minds of the masses of the people of any 
particular section, in reference to the great interests that are 
to be served. 



28o THE END OF THE AGES. 



THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 



During many years the question of "Woman's Rights" and 
"Woman Suffrage" has been extensively agitated. While we 
have always admitted that woman has rights which are in all 
respects equally inviolable with the rights of man, and that 
among these rights is the right to be represented in a govern- 
ment which taxes her, and claims her obedience to its laws; 
yet we have never taken part in the agitation for woman's 
suffrage under the political machinery now existing. Our 
reasons for this have been several: i. We are compelled to 
regard the ballot as now used, as failing to express the better 
and more intelligent will of the people, and thus, in a great 
degree, as a sham and delusion, and as such worth but little' 
even to the male voter, to say nothing of the female. 2. The 
disorderly scenes often witnessed and the profane and obscene 
language often heard at the polls on election day, especially 
in our large cities, would prevent every decent v^omzxi from ap- 
pearing there to deposit her ballot, while the ignorant tools of 
party selfishness, and the drunken harlots who would have 
votes to sell would pollute the ballot bov with their contribu- 
tions to the success always of the worst party with the worst 
principles; and woman's suffrage would only serve to increase 
woman's suffering. And so if woman is now disfranchised, we 
attribute that disfranchisement to the very nature of the system 
now in vogue more than to any other cause. 

\ But under the electoral system now proposed, all these diffi- 
culties would be avoided, and the intelligence and moral 
worth of genuine womanhood could make itself heard and felt, 
and "woman's rights" could easily be established on the same 
footing with the rights of man. It would be premature to 
discuss at present the specific methods by which this just and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 281 

desirable end could be accomplished in a manner perfectly 
orderly, and to the satisfaction of all parties. Side issues, in 
which conflicting prejudices might be unnecessarily enlisted, 
should not be allowed to embarrass the discussion of our 7nain 
plan, which, being put into operation, all ulterior and merely 
incidental questions would speedily find their true solution. 

These seemingly self-evident, teachings of nature, reason 
and plain practical common sense, form the essence of all we 
have to propose for the i?iifial steps of the political and social 
changes which the times demand. We propose no high handed 
measures of revolutionary violence. Our plan is one of peace 
— simply contemplating a new and natural system of primary 
MOVEMENTS IN POLITICS — di first st&p, which, if properly taken, 
will naturally lead to all the ulterior reforms that are desirable. 
The general structure of the government may remain the 
same as at present. Not a single change need be made in tlie 
national constitution or in the constitutions of any of the 
states, at least until experience shall hereafter teach that cer- 
tain modifications would be wise. 

What think ye, then, of our suggestions, O Americans ? 
What have you to say to them, O nations of the earth ? What 
response hast thou to make to. them, O great bleeding,, crushed 
Heart of Humanity ? Great God with all thine angels, look 
down from heaven and judge, and correct all errors, .and con- 
firm all truths, and enlighten all minds, and chasten all hearts, 
and make all things new in government, in society, in church; 
for truly the end of all things is nigh, even at the 
door! 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

BRIEF REVIEW OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION AND THE 
TERRIBLE WARNINGS IT CONTAINS. 

Disorders enumerated; Present institutions powerless to correct them; Two 
pictures of the future; No time to be lost. 

ONCE more, men and brethren, let us bring before us in a 
cursory review the grave and serious features of the pres- 
ent situation. Our nation without a single definite idea to 
lift its aspirations or direct its aims; our government in the 
hands of two alternately predominating parties, neither of 
which has any fixed aims which rise above party victory and 
the spoils of office; our primary movements in politics, defying 
the natural laws of human society, and ignoring the great funda- 
mental and reciprocating interests which constitute the founda- 
tion stones of every true political structure ; our nominating ma- 
chinery, falsely constructed at best, hopelessly in the hands of 
those who use it for corrupt and selfish purposes; the elective 
franchise entangled in such a maze of delusions, frauds and 
embarrassments as often renders it utterly incompetent to ex- 
press even in the most vital cases the best will of the people; 
our law-making bodies composed, for the most part, of third 
and fourth rate men who use their position and power for their 
own personal aggrandizement and profit, and who make laws 
for those who will pay them their price; even the high and 
dignified office of President of the United States only saved 



THE END OF THE AGES. 283 

from being purchased for money by the illegibility of a few 
words in a cipher despatch, and by a delay of the explanation 
for a few hours, and thus until too late for the consummation 
of the crime; the very form of Republican government in sev- 
eral of the Southern States at the time of this writing crouch- 
ing before the muzzle of the shot gun and overwhelmed by 
fraudulent votes with which the ballot boxes are stuffed well 
nigh to bursting, asocial system in which each interest practi- 
cally, in a great degree, ignores all the others, and in which 
the two great material interests of Capital and Labor are 
throv/n into a conflict as unnatural and as disastrous to the 
whole system as would be a war between the digestive organs 
and the heart and lungs in the human body. Peculation, em- 
bezzlements, defalcations and constructive frauds in business, 
sap the foundations of public confidence, block the wheels of 
industry, stagnate the channels of commerce and trade and 
prepare a soil in which the seeds of vice and crime germinate 
with rank fecundity. The whole head is sick and the heart 
faint and the whole body is covered with wounds and bruises 
and putrefying sores. 

For all this there is no adequate source of health — no effi- 
cient power of recuperation — in any of our existing institu- 
tions. Political parties, besides being destitute of any ele- 
ments of self-reform and powerless for substantial good to the 
nation, are ever willing to compromise with the vicious and 
disorderly classes for the sake of their votes. Local political 
reform associations can effect nothing beyond occasionally the 
election of their candidate for a ward or township oflice. 

Charitable institutions and churches can do nothing beyond 
mitigati?ig the prevailing evils, and applying anodynes to the 
woes and agonies of humanity. Not one solitary ray of hope 
for the "healing of the nations" comes forth from any of these 



284 THE END OF THE AGES. 

existing institutions considered by themselves, but from year to 
year and from decade to decade, the evils they were intended 
to obviate appear to be growing worse and worse. Verily we 
cannot go on much longer in this direction before arriving at 
the End; and so terrible would that end be that we fain would 
draw a veil over the vision that comes before our eyes. 

Let it be distinctly noted that our complaint is not against 
the people rti' such^ and aside from the institutions by which their 
actions are guided and controlled. At the worst view the 
standard of personal morality and intelligence among individ- 
uals is as high as it ever was, and farther than this, it may be 
truly affirmed that there never were so many just, generous, 
intelligent and noble-minded men and women .as at present. 
These are found among all classes, from the honest toiler who 
depends upon his daily pittance for his daily bread, to those in 
the so-called highest walks of life. They are found among the 
hard-handed farmers and workers in the Primary Department; 
among the mechanical and manufacturing population of all 
grades; among railroad men and shippers and merchants; 
among capitalists and financiers; among- men of letters, and 
public teachers and artists; among scientists, political econo- 
mists and philosophers, and among the yet few but increas- 
ingly numerous sunlit minds in the clerical, religious and in- 
spirational classes who stand as the seers and prophets of the 
age. All these persons perceive and deeply deplore the exist- 
ing evils and would gladly correct them if they knew how, and 
had the power. But they have no intelligent conception of a 
commoti object to be aimed at, no agreement upon any plan af 
co-operation, and no organized arid working machinery by 
which they could make their power felt. They are before the 
ideas and institutions which the past has entailed upon the pres- 
ent and yet many of them have not quite caught the idea. that 



THE END OF THE AGES. 285 

changes in our plans and institutions are necessary to otlier re- 
forms. Thus they are constantly striving to put the new 
wine into old bottles, and they wonder that their well-meant 
efforts should prove so futile! 

It is to this class of honest, patriotic and philanthropic citi- 
zens that we make our earnest appeal; and we tell them again 
that it is utterly vain to expect the accomplishment of such re- 
forms as are now imperiously demanded by the old methods of 
using the ballot box. For even though every demagogue and 
politician could be persuaded to abstain from frauds and dis- 
honest tricks and every voter could be turned into an honest, 
patriotic and intelligent man, the working of the political 7iiachine 
ivould still continue to be a failure until methodically and scientif- 
ically constructed on the broad foundation of the whole series 
of coordinate, correlative and harmonious interests of the Body 
Politic, and until representation in the government is based 
equally upon those Interests and upon those alone. This 
declaration seems so much like a truism that we put it forth 
in all the force of the language at our command. 

We point you then, honest and patriotic fellow citizens, on the 
one hand to the deep and dark gulf to which the tide of our pres- 
ent methods of political and social action is surely carrying us; 
and on the other, to those bright visions of the future of our 
race which have been the enrapturing theme of bards and proph- 
ets and seers in every age of the world. On the one side we 
see the frightful symbols of increasing distrust, depression in 
business, bankruptcy, riot, destruction of life and property, 
communism, anarchy, despotism. On the other hand we be- 
hold the prospective visions of harmony, justice, order, liberty, 
fraternity, peace, intelligence, refinement, beauty, and ulti- 
mately the whole earth converted into a garden of God. Look 
on this picture and then on that, and choose ye between them. ■ 



THE END OF THE AGES. 



If you choose the former you will continue in your eating and 
drinking, your marrying and giving in marriage, your buying 
and selling, your mutual frauds, oppressions and injustices, 
just as the Old World did in the days of Noah; and in that 
case, may God have mercy upon you and upon my poor coun- 
try! But if you choose the latter, the holier and more beauti- 
ful picture, you will bestir yourselves, for there is no time to 
be lost. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE NEW NATIONAL IDEA DEFINED, AND THE NEW DEC- 
LARATION. 

We have found it; new declaration; What think ye ?— Objections answered; 
The times demand moral heroes. 

1 T was shown in a previous chapter that the great idea with 
*■ which our Republic started, has been worked up and actu- 
alized, so far as it can be, in the forms of political develop- 
ment: the first part of it — that of National Independence — by 
the war of 1812-14, and the second part — that of the Equality 
of mankind before the law — by the emancipation of the slaves 
and the enactments of the fourteenth and fifteenth amend- 
ments of the constitution, following the war of the rebellion in 
1861-65. During the discussions with which the chapters im- 
mediately following were occupied, we several times posted 
our notice, ''Wanted — a new national idea." 

We have insisted that since our old Idea is worked up, and 
become inoperative, we need a new one, to lift the aspirations, 
direct the. aims and shape the policy of the nation for the 
future, and to arrest the progress of corruption and decay 
which have already made such fearful ravages. Rational de- 
duction from the principles elucidated in still later chapters, 
gives us the elements of the new Idea in such definite form, 
that we are enabled with some degree of assurance, to say, 
WE have found it. And we submit, that if the Old Idea, as 



266 THE END OF THE AGES. 

embraced in the Declaration of American Independence, is 
now bygone and dead as a working political force, the New 
one is its risen and expanded spirit, and may with its several 
component propositions be embodied in a New Declaration as 
follows; 

NEW DECLARATION. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident; 

I. That all persons born within the compass of any truly and 
naturally organized political society, are by nature and by in- 
alienable right, members, and thus integral parts, of the Body 
of that society. 

II. That as such members, all are entitled to the nourishing 
care and protection of the Body, and to such aids to support, 
comfort, development and happiness as they may naturally 
and justly need, and as the Body, in the exercise of its natural 
functions, may be able to bestow. 

III. That the members, in return, owe loyalty to the con- 
stitution of the Body, obedience to its laws, and the contribu- 
tion of such justly graduated proportions of their substance, 
powers and efforts as may be necessary to its support, develop- 
ment and improvement. 

IV. That all members are equally entitled and equally 
amenable to the awards of natural and compensative justice, 
from the Body and from each other, as may be determined by 
their characters and acts, or by theirobedience or disobedience 
to the laws. 

V. That disloyalty to the Body thus naturally organized, 
and composed of many and diverse members, is disloyalty to 
one's self and to universal principles; that violence to its laws 
is violence to one's self and all others; and hence that loyalty 



THE END OF THE AGES. 289 

and obedience are the only true grounds of order, liberty and 
happiness. 

VI. That in a Body Politic, constructed on the basis of nat- 
ural principles and with a view to secure the best interests of 
all its members, only the best and wisest men should be called 
to the duty of making and administering its laws, as it is only 
the best and wisest that correspond to the heart and head. 

As all the elements of the ideal organization here projected 
are human, we call it a form of Humanity on a large scale; 
or in other words, a Grand Man, of which individual men and 
the diverse Guilds and Classes of which we have spoken in pre- 
vious chapters, are the special organs. 

Though a Body Politic thus organized will, of course, at its 
birth, be but an infant, and hence necessarily crude and im- 
perfect, it will never need to be re-formed, reconstructed or 
revolutionized, but will contain in itself all the elements of 
eternal progress through successive cycles of change, and will 
be immortal. 

A summarized expression of this Idea or Ideal, and one 
which may be useful as a motto of a movement for its embodi- 
ment, is contained in the following words: "universal co- 
operation FOR THE universal GOOD." 

It is believed, now, that our exposition of principles, and the 
outlines of our proposed plans, are sufficiently clear for ordinary 
apprehension. We call, therefore, upon the political scientists 
of the age, and upon men of plain common sense in every 
grade of life, to think of these things, and with that candor 
which is suited to the gravity of the subject, to make their 
own estimate of the value of the philosophy of human society 
that is set forth in these pages. Look at it, friends, from all 
points, from within and from without, from generals to par- 
ticulars and from particulars to generals. Be sure that you 

19 



29° THE END OF THE AGES. 

bring your best intelligence to bear upon it, and that you 
examine it with all the earnestness and thoroughness of minds 
who prize truth above preconceived opinions and merely 
human theories, and if you find it deficient in any point, supply 
from your own mental resources that which is lacking, or sub- 
stitute the whole with something that is superior. But re- 
member that the Truth, and hence the true order of human 
society, is that which eternally IS, being involved in the 
divine constitution of things; and that it needs only to be dis- 
covered; but that it may not be simulated, or substituted by any 
mere human contrivance or invention whatsoever. If, however, 
on thorough examination, the theory here set forth should, in its 
general features be found to accord with the grand system of 
nature and the universal principles of divine government — 
then, fellow citizens, yoii. cannot afford to reject it. 

But honestly believing under the force of all the analogies 
and correspondences of nature which we have exhibited, and 
a thousand more that might be adduced if necessary, that the 
system we have set forth is the only true one, and the only 
one which is adequate to meet the exigencies of the age; and 
the only one the practical application of which can save us 
from existing evils and far greater ones which threaten; and 
the only one that can inaugurate the era of universal justice 
and peace — we invite you, patriots, philanthropists, brothers, 
in every grade, calling and occupation of life, to rally under 
this new standard of Reform, whose motto is '^Universal co- 
operation for the universal good.'' And you, gentle and loving 
woman, who, no longer the mere slave of man and the instru- 
ment of his lust, must now take your stand by his side as his 
companion and equal — we crave your co-operation, your en- 
couraging smiles, and the counsels of your superior intuitions, 
in the inauguration and prosecution of a movement in which 



THE END OF THE AGES. 29I 

your interests will be involved equally with those of the sterner 
sex. Let the New Idea, then, be sounded forth among your 
sisters as among your brothers — '■'■Universal co-operation for 
the mtiversal good. And let every person of pure motives 
and honest aspirations, whether old or young, male or female, 
lend a helping hand in the inauguration of this new system of 
political and social harmony, peace and prosperity, in which 
the highest good of the parts and the whole are made mutually 
dependent upon each other. 

But we are aware that the path before us is not free from 
obstructions. It is said that "to be forewarned is to be fore- 
armed;" and it is well that in girding ourselves to the work 
that is before us, we should expect that the final triumph 
which will certainly crown our wisely directed and persevering 
efforts, will almost necessarily be preceded by an obstinate 
battle with several classes of opposers. Among these classes 
we may mention the following as the principal: 

1. That which in common parlance is called the "Old 
Fogy" class; meaning the class who never learn and never 
forget anything; those who run in the ruts worn for them by 
their predecessors; who have an invincible devotion to the 
"good old ways" and who insist upon putting the stone into 
one end of the bag to balance the bushel of wheat in the other, 
rather than to divide the grain in two equal portions while be- 
ing carried on the horse's back to the mill — simply because 
their fathers and grandfathers of many generations did the 
same. As the car of reform will have to carry this load of pig 
lead, we must build it strong, and hitch a strong team before 
it; for our principles will not permit us to dump the load in the 
dirt. 

2. Politicians of the old stripe, who get their living by their 
skill and cunning in carrying nominations and managing 



292 THE END OF THE AGES. 

elections, form another class from which opposition may be ex- 
pected. Their instincts will teach them plainly, that if the 
proposed new political machinery should be put into success- 
ful operation, their occupation, like that of Othello, will be 
gone. They will meet the new proposition, first with contemp- 
tuous ridicule, then loading it with misrepresentations and 
false interpretations, they will pronounce it Utopian and im- 
practicable; afterwards, seeing that it is nevertheless likely to 
receive the respectful attention of large and influential masses 
of the people, they will suggest this, that and the other modi- 
fication, professedly to make it more practicable and more ac- 
ceptable to the people, but really with a view to preserve their 
own prestige and power. And finally, perceiving that 
the new plan is meeting with popular favor, and is 
about to be carried into effect, many of them will experience 
a sudden conversion and seek to place themselves in the 
front ranks of its advocates — only that they may stand 
the better chance to be chosen engineers to run the new ma- 
chine. Beware of their sophistries and cunning wiles, and 
give them no prominent positions until after a long and satis- 
factory probation. 

3. Monopolists^ who have acquired wealth by tyrannizing 
over labor and by purchased legislative franchises. This class, 
comparatively small in number, yet powerful under the old 
system by its ability to coerce votes and to purchase legisla- 
tion, will oppose a change by which their political power would 
be reduced to the standards of equality and justice; but it 
simply needs that they should be known and understood in 
order that obstacles which they might otherwise place in the 
way of the new movement, may, of themselves, become nuga- 
tory and inefficient. 

4. Forestallers, gamblers in stocks, and speculators upon 



THE END OF THE AGES. 293 

the necessities, the weaknesses, the ignorance, crimes and 
vices of their fellow beings, and those who, disdaining to do 
anything particularly useful to others, are on the qui vine for 
some fortunate turn of the wheel in this game of chance in the 
warring interests of society, whereby they may become sud- 
denly rich upon the misfortunes of others. Under the new 
system proposed, these men would be speedily reduced to the 
necessity of getting their living by honest and useful means, 
and for that reason they will oppose the change. It is only 
necessary that they should be distinctly known, in order that 
their opposing influence may be, in a great measure, paralyzed. 

5. The honestly skeptical and disheartened class, whose 
objection will be, "Your fine theories look very well on paper 
and might be useful if they could be carried out; but alas! it 
would take many generations to work them out, and neither 
we nor our children will have the benefit of them; and there- 
fore let us make the best of our present condition, eating, 
drinking and being merry, for to-morrow we die." As a 
general rule this class would not actively work against the in- 
auguration of the newly proposed system, but at first their 
negative influence will undoubtedly be somewhat chilling and 

. discouraging. We must reason with them, plead with them 
and by our earnest work show them our firm determination 
that this new project of reform shall not fail; and then we shall 
have won them. 

6. Hostile theorizers, with partial and lop-sided ideas of 
reform, who think that a Shaker Society or an Oneida com- 
munity, or some modification of a Fourierite phalanx or some 
other theoretical form of associative labor which they may 
have conceived, contains the only germ of salvation to the 
nations. They will, perhaps, contend that a movement on the 
vast scale that we have proposed, which aims to carry the 



294 THE END OF THE AGES. 

whole nation with it, is too ponderous to be practicable, and 
that better results would be attainable if some socialistic or- 
ganization were commenced at some special locality, aiming, 
perhaps, first to embrace a township, then a county, then a 
state, and finally the whole nation — thus working, as it were, 
from some fixed point in the periphery of the wheel towards 
the center, rather than from the center in all directions 
towards the circumference. From the failures of many exper- 
imental projects of this kind that have been put forth, these 
well meaning socialistic propagandists have learned some im- 
portant lessons, but they have failed as yet to learn the one 
great lesson, which is, that no system of human society can 
ever permanently succeed, or be of lasting benefit to mankind, 
which is not founded upon universal and eternal principles; for 
none but such principles can embrace and provide for all 
human interests in harmony. That partial and local move- 
ments of this kind, if conceived and planned with a dtte regard to 
universal principles, may inure greatly to the benefit of those 
who engage in them, and even prove important auxiliaries to 
the final establishment of the universal and divine order of 
things, we do not deny; and in reference to such tvisely planned 
movements the words we have to offer are only those of en- 
couragement. 

7. Though the system we have proposed seems to us so ab- 
solutely and self-evidently the natural and hence the true one, 
it would be seeming presumption on our part not to leave 
ample room for the criticisms of honest, candid and intelligent 
minds who may think they have reason to dissent from our posi- 
tion, and believe that they have something better to propose. 
Such persons, clear-minded, conscientious and free from a 
captious spirit, will not seek to misrepresent or give false col- 
oring to any of our positions, but will analyze, synthesize, 



THE END OF THE AGES. 295 

weigh and measure, and bring all the resources of true science 
and philosophy to bear upon the solution of the problem in 
hand, ever governed by the unselfish and supreme desire of 
blessing mankind with beneficent and practical results. The 
criticisms, suggestions, assents and dissents, and new prop- 
ositions of such minds should receive respectful attention 
and be subjected to honest and candid discussion, with the 
only object of getting at the exact truth; for it is in this alone 
and in its practical embodiment in the working order of society, 
that all should be supremely interested. But just this one 
caution seems ever necessary: Do not allow any one to deceive 
you with a theory which, however glittering and plausible it 
may seem on its surface, is, after all, the mere invention or con- 
trivance of his own mind, having no counterpart in nature, for 
remember that the true theory eternally IS, and must simply 
be discovered and is not a mere factitious creation of any 
man. 

But if, on the other hand, this book, or any of its philosophiz- 
ings, should be so fortunate or unfortunate as to meet with show- 
ers of unreasoning ridicule, misrepresentation and inconsiderate 
denunciation from certain quarters, will it not become a serious 
question whether the authors of such treatment are honest, 
whether they are safe leaders of human thought, whether they 
are even models of good manners and whether they are worthy 
the slighest consideration. But the times demand heroes and 
the true hero will brook the malice, persecution and contempt of 
the world and even of pandemonium, in pursuit of his honest 
convictions of right and truth, and duty; and it is to heroes and 
not cowards that we now appeal for the carrying out of what- 
ever of truth and right there may be in the propositions we 
have set forth for the reform of our political and social 

SYSTEM. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



How shall we begin the work of reorganization ? — Chaos the mother of form — 
Organizing law of the universe the same everywhere; The egg; All organi- 
zation has here its representative processes; Stages of embryotic formation 
traced; Ripened minds of the age constitute the new society ovum; How 
organic form may be gestated from these; Propaganda and campaign or- 
ganized; Contrast of new and old platforms; superior dignity and moral 
force of the New; Success certain at least after a few experimental defeats; 
Then onward to victory! 



SUCH, then, being the fundamental principles and aims which 
it would seem must constitute our new plan of departure, 
what should be the first steps taken to initiate the reforms 
proposed? and how can the necessary reorganization be ac- 
complished? We look out upon the dead sea of existing politi- 
cal and social corruption, with all its crude theories and prej- 
udices, and with all its ambitions, interests, passions and lusts, 
which are surging to and fro in a thousand conflicting 
currents, and are fain to exclaim, "Alas, how can order be 
evoked from this mass of chaos? and how can salvation be 
made to blossom and bear fruit upon this field of blight and 
decay?" Let not your hearts be troubled. Chaos is not in- 
compatible with plasticity, and disorder may become the 
mother of form, if only the impregnating principle be of the 
right quality and sufficiently potent. But let us bear in mind 
— in this also as in all other cases — that the mere artificial con- 
trivances of man will necessarily be vain; that the true plan is 
and is not to be fabricated, but simply discovered; and that God 



THE END OF THE AGES. 297 

alone can save by working in man to will and to do according 
to His divine laws universally and eternally established, and 
that the organizing as well as the governing law of the universe is 
the same always and everywhere. 

Then let us, for our next thought, consider that this whole 
New Movement, as indexed by the Divine Laws of Nature, is 
yet in ovo — in the &gg — as the nebulated mass of the world, the 
solar system, the universe, was, correspondentially speaking, 
once also in the &g% ; and that the process of gestation, formation 
and organization in any one complete circle or sub-circle of 
creation, must necessarily be, as to the principles involved, in 
exact correspondence with that in every other circle and sub- 
circle. With this thought before us, let us learn our lesson 
from the changes that occur in the egg while the embryo is in 
process of formation. 

1. The first state of the ripened ^gg, is that of a homo- 
geneous mass of materials containing, passively, certain inher- 
ent adaptations to the formation of a new living organism, of 
the species to which it belongs, but yet having no power of 
self-development. 

2. So soon as the germinative vescicle in the yolk 
of the tgg receives from the male the prolificating 
energy, it commences a series of divisions and sub-divisions, 
called by embryologists, "segmentations." First it is divided 
into two equal parts; then these parts, assuming each a 
rounded shape, are in like manner divided, making four in all, 
and so in like manner these become successively divided into 
eight, sixteen, thirty-two and sixty-four parts; and finally by 
still further subdivisions which it is difficult to trace by the mi- 
croscope the whole mass is resolved into a form of minute and 
consociated corpuscles. 

3. The next process is that of the disconnection of some of 



298 THE END OF THE AGES. 

these corpuscles, their conversion into incipient blood and the 
establishment of currental exchange or coimnerce between the 
inner and the outer portion of the mass. The corpuscle of 
the middle layer of the germ, as shown by the microscope, 
begin to loose at their outer margin, and to move through the 
interspaces thus formed, and to combine into currents, and 
those currents to assume particular directions. When these 
corpuscles move from the center towards the external surface 
of the germ, the others which become loose in the periphery, 
begin to move towards the center, where the two 
currents meet, and by their united forces generate a 
common current and thus something like a regular cir- 
culation. And all this occurs before there is a heart or any 
regularly formed blood vessels; but for that matter, if we 
should follow correspondences to bottom principles, we would 
find that each one of these little bodies (cells) combines in it- 
self the several properties of secretory and excretory gland, 
blood-corpuscle, heart and ganglion. 

4. In the next stage of the incubating process, afi&nitized 
particles are aggregated on all sides of the circulating 
channels, and form the blood vessels^ the ramifications of which 
(says Agassiz) are at first constantly changing. But one por- 
tion of the central vessel soon becomes enlarged and assumes 
the form of a simple elongated sack. This sack gradually 
gathering up and centralizing in itself the previously diffused 
forces of outwardly and inwardly tending currental circulation 
sets up a regular succession of expansive and contractile 
motions, and becomes the first and simplest form of the heart* 

5. The next stage of the incubative process is that in which 



*See the XVIII. Chapter of the author's volume, "The Macrocosm and 
Microcosm," entitled "Dualism of Productive Forces or the Systole and Diastole 
of Nature." 



THE END OF THE AGES. 299 

a plexus of nerves, with their ganglia as centers of force, make 
their appearance and become the first forms of the solar 
plexus and ganglionic system, from which the involuntary 
motions and emotions of the perfected system are subse- 
quently governed. 

6. The next stage is that which is characterized by the 
development of a larger ganglion, which becomes the brain, 
with its nervous ramifications, as the sensorium and the source 
of the function of voluntary motion; in distinction from the 
ganglionic system and its nerves, which perform merely vege- 
tative and involuntary functions. 

7. The next and last stage of gestation is that of specifica- 
tion, or that in which the foetus gradually assumes the form dis- 
tinctively characteristic of the species to which it belongs, and 
even the distinctive family features and psychological qualities 
of its parentage. For up to this late stage of foetal life, there 
is nothing to distinguish the embryo of one living being from 
that of another, or that of the human being from that of the 
horse or even of the turtle; but this last stage being completed, 
the embryo is ready to be born into that new and higher life 
for which all these wonderful processes of ante-natal develop- 
ment were preparatory. 

Adjusting the correspondences of this realm of nature's 
operations to the plane of our present inquiries, the truth re- 
flected seems to stand thus: The ripened vdwi^s of the age as 
found in all the naturally segregated walks of life — people who 
perceive that old cycles of political, social and historical evolu- 
tions have had their day, have worked out their mission, and 
gone dead and that the time for renaissance has come — those 
who perceive that our nation can no longer confide itself to 
the guidance of our present hopelessly corrupt and corrupting 
ideas and methods of constituting the government, without 



300 THE END OF THE AGES. 

encountering farther disorders, disgrace, destruction of all in- 
terests, and a final and violent revolution which will go back- 
ward xdX\itx than forward; — and who, having freed their minds 
from all prejudice, are earnestly inquiring, "What shall we do 
to be saved ?" — these constitute the ripened <?^^from which the 
new system is to be gestated. The Truth, demonstrated by 
the analogies and correspondences of the one and only Grand 
system of Nature, and coming in contact with their yearning 
and candidly reasoning minds, is the prolificatmg prmciple 
by which the germinating process must be set up. Cogitation 
and discussion will cause that detachment from the old politi- 
cal associations and conditions and the formation of those in- 
dividual opinions concernmg the proposed new which will an- 
swer to the second condition observed in the &<gg — that of 
"segmentation," so called. The interchange of thought, and 
the consultations as to what should be done, which will ensue 
between individuals and small masses, will answer to the third 
stage — that of indefinite currental circulation. The calling of 
mass meetings and the organization of a regular propaganda 
will answer to the fourth stage, indefinite but mutable blood- 
vessels, and incipient heart appear. The sympathetic and co- 
operative interchanges which will then ensue between branch 
organizations in different localities, will answer to the fifth 
stage of embryonic formation, in which the ganglionic system 
with its nerves begins distinctly to appear. Finally, in the 
sixth stage, the central and directing brain, in the form of a 
general council or otherwise, will appear; which will preside 
over the whole organization, counselingand directing its move- 
ments in order and harmony, while as a finality the invisible 
spirit or "Idea" that will pervade and give life and energy to 
the whole, will cause growth and completeness of the form 
and declare the species and character of the new creation. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 3OI 

The formation, ab ovo, of this new political propaganda being 
complete, the whole nation will then stand to // in the relation 
of another and more grand ovum, to be impregnated in turn 
by its embodied ideas and principles, and to undergo the series 
of changes which will bring about the birth of the pure and 
just political and social system of the future. 

Looking for the more minute details of the first steps to be 
taken to inaugurate the reforms contemplated, we find that 
large bodies of men directly related to different and specific 
interests of the Body Politic, are already organized, and might 
compose efificient parts of the machinery to be employed in the 
outworking of the proposed reforms, {/" their aspirations could 
be brought into harmony with the main objects. Among these 
might be mentioned the Grangers, the Trades Unions, the 
Brotherhood of Engineers, and besides these, or within them, 
there are innumerable labor associations devoted to various 
branches of industry. But unfortunately the purpose and a7n- 
inus of these various bodies is, at present, quite different, and 
even antagonistic, to that of the general movement here pro- 
posed. 

They are organized for war of interests, while our motto is 
"Universal cooperation for the universal good." Each one of 
them, jealous of all other interests besides its own, is en- 
deavoring — for that is virtually the case — to exalt its own in- 
terests by the depression of all others, or by making these 
subordinate and subservient, instead of coordinate and aux- 
iliary to its own. A heresy so great, so flagrant and so un- 
natural as this, must of itself totally disqualify any body of 
men from cooperating with any movement that tends to the 
organization of all interests in harmony, and to the peace and 
prosperity of the country. But it is hoped that sotne of these 
organizations, and finally all of them, will be able to see the 



302 THE END OF THE AGES. 

truth of this matter, and lend us their efficient aid in a move- 
ment so vital to their prosperity as well as to that of all others. 

For the seeds of the proposed new movement, however, de- 
pendence, at present, is to be placed mainly upon the higher, 
purer and more intelligent minds belonging to all classes. Men 
of honest hearts and pure motives and, fortunately, in a coun- 
try of common schools like this, men also of intelligence and 
sound reasoning powers, are to be found in large numbers 
among every class of the native population. Such minds, 
whether among the laboring or capitalist class, will accept 
truth when it is made sufficiently clear to their comprehension; 
and while heroically defying all sneers and opposition from 
whatever quarter, they will not hesitate to cooperate with 
any movement that gives promise of relief from existing dis- 
orders, and from the foreboding of future anarchy and desola- 
tion. But if any class, organization or clique, whether of la- 
borers or capitalists, should persist in warfare against other legi- 
timate interests than its own, with a view to subordinate the 
latter to its own exclusive aggrandizement, then that class must 
be rejected from this movement as not honest, not just, not 
wise, but sordid, selfish, mean and foolish, and as destined to 
certain and ignominious failure in the end. 

And now, my countrymen, moved by a powerful instinct of 
self-interest and self-protection; by a parental regard for the 
interests ai^d happiness of your posterity; by a generous senti- 
ment of patriotism and philanthropy; by a conscience which 
protests against the domination of injustice and wrong, and 
by an aspiration for the future peace, prosperity and happiness 
of our nation and the world — let a Primary Movement in Politics 
be organized as speedily as possible composed of the true and 
noble minds of all classes, representing all interests that may be 
spontaneously drawn together upon the basis of the general 



THE END OF THE AGES. 303 

principles set forth in preceding pages. And let them enter im- 
mediately upon the most vitally important political movement 
perhaps that ever was proposed. Discuss these truths among 
yourselves and be sure that you understand them and then spread 
them far and wide among your fellow beings. Appoint your 
delegates to primary conventions as best you may, being sure 
that all the seven great leading interests of the Body Politic that 
have been named, are equally represented;* and hold your con- 
ventions, and put your candidates for office before the people, 
and inaugurate your political campaigns, and put competent ex- 
pounders of your principles on the rostrum, and as soon as pos- 
sible in the editorial chair; and you will find that from the start 
you will be able to appeal to the convictions of the people with 
a moral and intellectual power which nothing can zvithstand. 
How deserving of all honor will be the dignified convention, 
composed of delegates from all the leading organs of the Body 
Politic, to select candidates for office to represent the interests 
of all in harmony! And how honorably will it contrast with 
the old time ballot-box stuffing primaries, with their juggling 
tricks, and drunken brawls, and third and fourth rate men for 
nominees to office! And when, as the electoral campaign is in 
progress, an honest and intelligent citizen takes up a news- 
paper and reads the platform of either one of the old parties 
and feels that behind its fair promises which are not seriously 
intended to be performed stands its deeper anitnus expressed in 
the unwritten words, ^ ^Victory and Spoils," diX\6.t\\e.n\NhQn in an- 
other column, he reads the "New Declaration" and the 
motto "Universal Cooperation for universal good," with 
the best men, selected by agreement of all, and when 
he is told that these are the principles of the New Movement, 



^See Chapter XXXII. 



304 THE END OF THE AGES. 

and reflects upon, then contrasts with the principles of the old 
parties — how long will it take him to decide which set of 
principles is entitled to the support of his vote? 

And then again, as to the contrast of the speeches heard 
from the several rostrums: From those of the old parties will, 
of course, be heard the usual misrepresentation, vituperation 
and appeals to the passions and prejudices of the thoughtless 
multitude; while from that of the new, will be heard plain, dig- 
nified discourses upon the principles of political and social 
science, the popular understanding of which is alone necessary 
to ensure the success of the New Movement. How could a 
movement in such favorable contrast with the old parties and 
challenging from the outset the respect of every thinker and 
honest man, fail to grow rapidly in the favor of the people? 
At first it would, perhaps, have to take the seeming form of a 
party and would suffer a few defeats; but if properly conducted 
no power on earth could prevent it from growing from 
year to year — simply because it would have the unreserved 
sanction of social science, of true philosophy, of common 
sense and of the laws of nature. Resistance to it would, from 
the first, be in feeble undertones and would take mostly the 
form of misrepresentation, which could easily be corrected; 
and hardy indeed would be a devotee of the old regime who, 
understanding the new plan, could look an honest man in the 
face and say it is not the better of the two. 

Fellow Americans, consider deeply, even if you do not de- 
cide to follow the advice of one who has personally witnessed 
the grand developments of this nation during the last fifty 
years and more; who in his own quiet way and obscure retire- 
ment has thought much, experienced much, reasoned much 
concerning the philosophy of nature and of human institutions; 
who has an abundance of aid from sources outside of, and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 305 

above himself; who has learned to love his country as the 
highest object of his earthly loves, and who has now arrived at 
a period of life which places him beyond all ambitious motives 
except the ambition to deserve a kindly remembrance after he 
shall have departed hence. That advice is, that you arouse 
from your lethargy and prepare for a change which 7mtst shortly 
come — peaceably if you are wise, but with terrible force of 
destruction if you continue to slumber heedlessly on. Even as 
we write* the clank of arms is heard in the secret drill rooms 
of communists and other associations of malcontents in several 
of our principal cities. The newspaper press counsels vigi- 
lance on the part of the authorities, increase of police force 
and military readiness to put down with crushing blows the 
first outburst of riot and insurrection. This was done in July, 
1877, but only after the destruction of many millions of 
property and the derangement of the business of the country 
for many months. The suppression of such an insurrection 
might and in the end, surely would be, accomplished again, but 
with the superior organization and greater perfection of the 
plans of the malcontents at this day only after a saerifice of a 
far greater number of lives. And after all, the evil would not 
then be cured, as its cause would not have been reached. And 
that same cause will remain to afflict all classes of society until 
it is effectually removed in the harmonization of the interests 
of all the organic parts of the Body Politic. In what other 
way can such harmonization be accomplished so effectually 
as by admitting all interests as such to equal representation in 
the government? We tell you, again, with the overwhelming 
authority of your own common sense dictations, that the 
old method of political action is utterly poiverless to bring 
about such harmonization, and that, for many other reasons 

*May, 1878. 

20 



306 THE END OF THE AGES. 

which we have mentioned, it can no longer be continued in 
practice without danger of great and increasing disorders. 
Then cut loose from the old method. at once, unhesitatingly 
and forever; lean not upon that broken reed or it will pierce 
you. If you can find a better plan for a new movement — one 
that is more natural, more rational, more just — than the one 
we have proposed, embrace it we beseech you. But if the 
plan here submitted meets the exigencies of the times, and 
covers in a general way, all conceivable grounds of human in- 
terest and welfare, and gives opportunity for the intelligence 
of the people to provide for all these in harmony, then be 
up and doing. Think, reason, familiarize yourselves with its 
principles and teach them to others by conversation, by 
lectures, and through the press. Organize your associations; 
call your conventions of delegates; put your candidates in the 
field and work your way steadily and heroically through a few 
instructive and experimental defeats; and we promise you that 
not many years of faithful effort will elapse before you will 
see the walls of the old Babylon of political confusion lying 
prostrate in the dust, and the new temple of reform will stand 
forth in all its symmetry, from whose sunlit dome will float in 
triumph the flag of the New Era of universal justice, peace and 
good will among men. Failure is impossible, for it is the 
WILL OF God. 



Note — About the time this was written, the Greenback Party, so called, 
was being organized; but they are not, thank God, meeting with the success 
which they seemingly anticipated. Their object is to flood the country with ir- 
redeemable and depreciated currency, and with this comparatively worthless 
stuff to pay the government debt. Concerning this I have only to remark, 
That a dishonest nation does not deserve to live; and a man who votes to make 
the nation dishonest, must first be dishonest himself. 



CHAPTER XXA^I. 

WHAT MAY BE AND WILL BE DONE UNDER THE NEW POLITICAL 
ORGANIZATION. 

Farther characteristics of a Government thus organized; Farther action will 
suggest itself; What legislation may do; True laws are, and are not 
man-made; Registration by classes; Autonomies and chartered rights; 
Police surveillance; Boards of statistics; Overstocking and understock- 
ing; Financial problems easily solved; Graduated taxation; Study of 
correspondences; Antagonisms supplanted by sympathies; Religious 
, fraternity; Crime and poverty ceased, and prisons and poorhouses 
closed — Retrospect of the path of argument; The two paths of the future, 
and whither leading; The new Age, and fifth stage of civilization; 
Visions of Glory — Then forward! 

13 UT," says some one, "in this e7id of the cycle of the world 
^ wliich you liave endeavored to prove is now upon us, and 
which the imagination of many people has pictured as a cata- 
clysm of fire enveloping the whole terrestrial globe — is this all 
you have to propose for our nation — the mere reorganization 
of Primary movements in Politics, on the basis of the principles 
you have set forth ? " 

Not quite all, but we will say nearly all for the present. 
We hope in future works to be able to say something of univer- 
sal interest and importance on a still more elevated but closely 
allied subject. But for the present we have little more to 
offer. Any thoughtful mind may perceive that in the Primary 
movements in Politics resides the main cause of all that is sub- 
sequently developed in politics, and that as is the fountain, so 



3o8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

necessarily will be the stream that proceeds from it, whether for 
purity or foulness. We only know (for the word '■'■know'' 
seems scarcely too strong when used for a deduction so nearly 
partaking of the nature of mathematics), that a government con- 
stituted upon the model of Nature and her laws as herein sug- 
gested, and in which all interests of the Body Politic are 
equally represented, would necessarily partake, in a greater or 
less degree accordingas the Model has been faithfully followed, 
of the following characteristics: 

1. It would be a pure government, in which no official cor- 
ruption could take place without being subject to immediate 
elimination ; 

2. It would be an honest government, in which frauds on the 
ballot box would be without motive, and peculations in office 
would be difficult, and liable to immediate exposure, even in 
the improbable case of their being attempted; 

3. It would be an efficient government, all parts of the 
machinery of which would work smoothly together for the 
certain accomplishment of its ends; 

4. It would be an equitable government — -justice being 
equally meted out to all parts and individuals who representa- 
tively compose it. 

5. It would be 3. progressive government, ever fruitful of co- 
operative projects for the improvement, elevation, refinement, 
and beatification of the whole and all its parts; 

6. It would be a scientific^ philosophical^ and wise^ govern- 
ment, in which the highest wisdom of the highest minds could 
be brought into full play as the parental guide of all lower de- 
grees. 

7. It would be a government which God and His in- 
numerable hosts of angels could look down upon and bless, 
forevermore. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 309 

Moreover, such a system of government would be the sti-ong- 
est and at the same time the /r^.fj'/ that could be conceived; the 
strongest htc^.Vi'-^t its parts would everywhere be connected by ties 
of mutual dependence, supported and steadied by braces and 
counter braces, and regulated by checks and counter checks; 
the freest^ because through its crystalline texture each person 
could see his way clearly to the particular sphere of life, use- 
fulness and enjoyment best adapted to his powers and inclina- 
tions — thus avoiding the restrictions, and disabilities and arbi- 
trary compulsions of circumstances by which almost every one is 
now more or less enslaved. And besides all this, as every 
orderly individual would contribute to its strength and rich- 
ness, an injury to the least and lowest of its citizens would 
speedily be felt in its sensorium or center of wisdom and 
energy, as an injury to the whole Body, and a living force 
would be sent out to the part affected, that would be adequate 
to all necessary repairs. 

"But," says the reader, "have you not some special course 
of legislation to propose for a government constituted on this 
plan ?" None whatever. A government composed of the bet- 
ter and more sublimated elements of all classes, such as will 
be rendered perfectly available by our plan, may safely be 
trusted in the hands of the people for ivhatever course of legis- 
lation, or line of administrative policy, may spontaneously be 
determined upon, and with the absolute certainty that whatso- 
ever mistakes may be made in the commencement, will be 
speedily corrected by experience, and that the wisest possible 
course of proceeding will soon be found. Nevertheless, to aid 
the conceptions of the reader as to a few particular things that 
might, or might not be done, as wisdom might seem to dictate, 
we will offer the following surmises, based upon the probabili- 
ties of the case. 



3IO THE END OF THE AGES. 

1. On the assemblage of any legislative body constituted in 
the manner described, the first work would naturally be to 
appoint its cominittees to take charge of each and all the 
different interests which form the bases of representation. 
These Committees, radically speaking, would form the main 
part of the working machinery of the legislative body; and 
these, in intimate communication with the people, would re- 
ceive from them suggestions and petitions as to any laws that 
are desired and needed to operate in the sphere of this or that 
special or general interest. If the wisdom of the assembled 
body should decide that the proposed ^'■laws" are in accordance 
with national justice to all parties — in other words, in accord- 
ance with the laws of nature — they may be enacted, or pre- 
scribed for general observance; but under the general condi- 
tions here proposed, it would soon be learned that laws, in the 
highest sense, exist only in the deep arcana of the 
nature of things, and that it is the legitimate work of hu- 
man legislature only to discover them, define them, and pre- 
scribe them as the common rules of action. 

2. It would seem natural, also, that a legislature resting 
upon consociated Interests as the basis of its constituency, 
would enact a law providing for the registration, in systematic 
classifications and sub-classifications, of persons associated by 
occupation or employment, with the different segregated inter- 
ests and organic parts of the Body Politic, and providing that 
these registers should be printed for guides to the ascertain- 
ment of the numeral working forces to be depended upon for 
the performance of specific and necessary functions of the 
Body, so that redundancies of force in some parts, and 
deficiencies in others, might be self-correcting. 

3. Also, whenever a sufficiently large number of persons 
of any city or populous rural district being engaged in the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 3II 

same branch of business or in various branches that can be 
systematized into one; or whenever any sufficiently large joint 
stock company comprising all the coordinate interests of 
society, may desire to organize themselves into an autonomy or 
self-government for the regulation of their own internal 
affairs, the Legislature may grant them chartered rights 
for this purpose. And thus they may have their minia- 
ture legislative, judiciary and executive departments, and, 
on a small scale, all governmental appliances to regulate 
and advance the interests of their own craft or company, 
and to promote intelligence, peace and happiness among 
their own members — suing, and, as a Body, liable to be 
sued, in the civil courts of the state, and of course being 
in all cases subject to the constitution and laws of the state 
and general government. 

4. The chaotic mass of floating population that would be' 
registered as having no occupation, and as being without visi- 
ble support, would be fit subjects for special police surveil- 
lance, and in cases of conviction of criminal conduct, they 
could be utilized in the menial and compulsory service of char- 
tered associations or of the state, and brought under the opera- 
tion of benevolently imperative laws made for the prevention 
and cure of crime. 

5. Laws might be enacted, also, for the establishment and 
support of national, state and local Boards of Statistics, these 
boards intercommunicating with each other — by which the an- 
nual needs of cities, districts, states, and the country at large, 
and their sources of supply, might be approximately estimated, 
and that balance might be preserved between the production 
and consumption of particular articles of commerce, which 
is necessary to prevent stringency in the market, on the 
one hand, and overstocking of particular classes of goods on 



312 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the Other, and thus to prevent waste of both money and 
labor.* 

Under such a system of regulations, and especially in view 
of the conclusion established in a previous chapter, that the 
circulating money of the country is the circulating blood oi the 
Body Politic, while the products of the various spheres of 
Labor are the digestive and blood-making accessories — the 
problem of finance, which from time immemorial has been the 
stumbling block of political economists, would become easy 
and simple, and the harmony and mutual dependence of Labor 
and Capital, would be established beyond the possibility of 
future derangement. 

We can conceive how a natural system of graduated and dis- 
criminating taxation might be made useful in repressing waste- 
ful and hurtful luxuries in modes of living, and ultimately in 
bringing millions of acres of now unproductive land into the 
hands of actual settlers and cultivators; but on that subject we 
reserve our thought for the present, as we are unwilling that 
these suggestions, even though they be merely such, should be 
burthened with propositions that would certainly be met with 
strong dissent from any quarter. 

Of course humanity, acting freely through its law-making 
bodies under such a system of representation, would not neg- 
lect any measures tending to expand, ennoble, refine and adorn 
itself and all outer things that act upon itself. Thus edu- 
cation, science, art, literature, philosophy and a high toned 
rational and spiritual religion, would flourish as they could 
not flourish under a social system less perfectly constructed 
and reafulated. 



* Boards of Statistics having these ends in view do even now exist in some 
of the states, but their operations are crude and imperfect in comparison to 
what they might be. 



THE END OF THE AGES. '313 

We repeat that these are mere suggestions as to some of the 
things that might be done, and in no sense are they rules pre- 
scribed as to what must be done by the legislative organ of the 
people under the proposed new system. We are satisfied to 
believe that if, on the successful inauguration of this new 
system, some such a course of legislation as that here sug- 
gested be not pursued, some still better and wiser course will, 
in the light of gradual experience, be decided upon; and in 
that case our sense of satisfaction will be enhanced. 

But aside from all questions of details, it seems morally 
certain, that the very theory of a government constituted as a 
whole, of such an assemblage of coordinate and harmonious 
parts, and bearing as a whole such an admirable relation to 
each and all of its parts, and in which both the parts and the 
whole bear such a wonderful relation and correspondence to 
the whole system of the universe and its parts — cannot fail, 
by its very spirit and suggestiveness, to encourage the pro- 
found study, by the higher minds, of the science and phil- 
osophy of universal correspondences in their correlative 
degrees and series; — and by such study the human mind will 
attain to its noblest development of Wisdom. From among 
those acknowledged to be most proficient in the study of this 
grand science the people would most probably select their 
rulers. Thus even the object of ambition in the spheres of 
political life, now so low and selfish, would be to become wise 
and thus truly worthy of the suffrages of the people, as the 
only way to be elevated to the dignities of office. 

And thus, too, all humanity would be elevated by an elevation 
of the standards of aspiration, honor and respectability. Ani- 
mosities and jealousies between persons and classes heretofore 
in seeming antagonistic relations, would give place to the sym- 
pathies growing out of the knowledge of mutual relations and 



314 THE END OF THE AGES. 

dependencies. Religious bigotry and sectarian strife would 
be supplanted by that better spirit which would grow 
out of the knowledge of God and His superintending 
providences as seen in the universal correspondences of His 
works, and as proving the universal brotherhood of the race 
under one common and impartial Father. Even criminals 
would be pitied rather than hated for their unfortunate consti- 
tutional propensities and laws would be made more to prevent 
and cure crime than to punish it by inflictions injurious to the 
perpetrator. And, as once before said, not more than one gen- 
eration will pass after our new political and social system sha 1 
have been put into full operation before every prison and poor- 
house in the land will be closed for want of an occupant. 

People of America: — Our plan is before you. Our warning 
and advice will now be clear to those who have the intelli- 
gence to comprehend us, and the candor to interpret us aright. 
Our arguments have been drawn from the laws of nature, from 
recorded prophecies, from the signs of the times, and from 
existing political, social and religious necessities that seem im- 
perative. We have shown you that human history is not a 
mere disorderly jumble of events strung together without law; 
we have pointed out to you the wonderful footsteps of God as 
in evenly measured strides. He marches gloriously down the 
course of time. By cumulative evidence which leaves not one 
chance of fatal error in a thousand million, we have proved 
the reality of our newly discovered Law of Cycles in History, 
and shown from this source of evidence that not only our own 
nation, but the world, has now arrived at its grand climacteric 
period. We have shown that the circle of the old civilization 
has been extended around the whole globe, being complete 
with its out-cropping upon the Pacific Coast of America, and 
that the "tide of empire" can "wend its westward way" no 



THE END OF THE AGES. 315 

farther without trenching upon the old Mongolian races of 
eastern Asia, and commencing ane^v, and hence necessarily 
with a new systefti. We have shown that America, the highest 
outpost of civilization, and the natural missionary to an age 
still beyond, has worked up and exhausted its old national Idea 
and has become politically and socially corrupt, moribund and 
worm-eaten. From the tendency of malign influences that are 
now active in politics and general society, we have shown with 
a certainty which we think no one will seriously gainsay, that 
we ca?i 7iot go on much farther in our present course without 
encountering the direst calamities. Even as we write, the 
portents of a retrograde and anarchical revolution are thicken- 
ing, not only in the muttered threats of a discontented work- 
ing population, but in the action of a partisan congress which 
has lost control of its passions. Indeed, our present path 
grows rougher at each succeeding step, while looming in sight 
just beyond is the inevitable precipice and the yawning gulf 
of impenetrable darkness; and then when the oppressed of all 
nations shall look again for the hesperian star upon which they 
had fixed their hopes, they will see nothing but a disgusting 
black spot. 

O my countrymen! delude yourselves no longer with the 
vain hope that immunity from these prospective evils can 
come out of either of the existing parties in politics, or out 
of any conceivable partisan government that can be organized 
out of the shabby riff-raff elements that are available under the 
present mode of working our primaries and with the present 
misty and false ideas of the basis of Representation. 

But by shifting our course even so slightly as we have pro- 
posed, and as might be so easily and quickly done if we would 
apply ourselves earnestly to the work — that is, by simply 
reorganizing our Primary Movements in Politics on the 



3X6 THE END OF THE AGES. 

self-evidently natural basis of Interest representation and without a 
single change in oLir national or state constitutions except 
what afterwards might come in as a result of experience — the 
car of our national progress would roll on without a single jar, 
and so harmoniously that the very rumble of its wheels would 
be music. In the opening fields beyond through which our 
path would lead us, would lie honor and glory, and a degree 
of national prosperity never known before on earth; and our 
government, with only such subsequent changes as would 
naturally be due to gradual growth and increasing intelligence, 
morality and spirituality, would be an immortal government. 

What contemplative mind has not been struck with the force 
of slumbering life which bursts forth from the vegetable king- 
dom so soon as the garment of wintery snow and frost is re- 
moved ? So from the very hour that the proposed new politi- 
cal methods are inaugurated, and there is a public assurance of 
their general acceptance by the people as the rule hereafter 
to be followed, the discontents of labor, the timidity and extor- 
tions of capital, the warring interests of railroads and stocks 
and commerce, will have no ground to rest upon, having a com- 
mon and impartial adjudicator of their differences in the com- 
mon legislative councils of the state and nation, composed of 
equal representations from a// interests as combined in the one 
grand interest of all. 

Labor-saving machinery, relieved from the jealousies of la- 
boring men, will then be employed to an extent unknown be- 
fore, in increasing the product of labor, in curtailing the hours 
of toil, and in creating wealth and capital which, according to 
the very laws of nature must either rot, or be uselessly hoarded 
or be employed, either directly or indirectly, in the remunera- 
tion and enrichment of the laboring classes. New industries will 
be invented and multiplied; exhausted lands will be fertilized; 



THE END OF THE AGES. 317 

destroyed timber forests will be replanted, and new mines will 
be opened. Joint stock companies, in which muscle and brain 
as well as money will be invested at valuations arithmetically 
determined, will be organized for the purpose of carrying on 
correlative agricultural, gardening, mechanical, educational 
and artistic operations, with chartered rights and autonomies 
subordinate to the state and nation, and from the profits of 
which all the members will be paid prorata, according to the 
amount or valuation of their respective investments. Some- 
thing like the old plantation life of the South, Edenized and 
made free, will (or may), in this way be restored, and thus the 
exhausted Southern States may be regenerated, and turned 
into a garden of fertility and beauty. Agricultural, mechanical 
and manufacturing industries will be more nearly equalized in 
districts where either has now greatly the preponderance over 
the others, and thus the expenses of the distribution of mutual 
products to mutual consumers, will be greatly decreased, to the 
mutual advantage of all parties. (fA"^ ^^ ^^^ "^^ social system 
advances in development and application, every country wayside 
will be adorned with ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers; every 
township will have its halls of science, its well-selected libra- 
ries, Its public gardens and groves, its places of recreation and 
amusement, its shrines of worship dedicated to the worship of 
the All-Father; and as for schools, why the whole country it- 
self will be a school and its mute teachers will be the symbols 
of scientific, moral, philosophical truths which will meet the 
eye on every hand.* 



*In this respect the Japanese are ahead of us now; as I am told that even 
the walls of their restaurants and drinking houses, which we would adorn with 
low caricature prints and pictures of prize fighters, are by them inscribed with 
moral maxims. After all are we the heathens and they the Christians, or we 
the Christians and they the heathens? 



3l8 THE END OF THE AGES. 

And this is the New, the True, the Ascending' Republic, the 
fifth stage in the progress of Civilization; the incarnation of 
the Universal Paternity of God, into the practical form of the 
Universal Fraternity of man. "And I saw a new heaven and a 
new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed 
away." Even now the old world is staggering in its decrepi- 
tude to the grave. The new dawns from the rosy east, and 
millions of angels and spirits of just men made perfect, and 
many good men and women on earth whose prophetic ken has 
been opened, are even now singing the gloria in- excelsis over 
the birth of a new and brighter age. 

And O glorious America of the future! as the eye glances 
down the vista of the coming century, I behold in rapt vision 
thy fields verdant and blooming as a garden of paradise; thy 
husbandmen content and happy in the rewards of^their easy 
toil; thy workshops musical with the hum of healthy but not 
exhaustive industry; thy barns and store-houses teeming with 
abundance; thy railways, and rivers, and lakes, and seas, all 
alive with travel and commerce; thy cities more glorious than 
old Babylon and Thebes in their opulence and' magnificence; 
thy poets, artists and philosophers with sunlit brows, drinking 
in the inspirations of heaven; thy young men and maidens 
blooming in the beauties of virtue and health; thy old men and 
women erect and vigorous at the age of a hundred years; the 
communion of angels with men established; the temple of the 
God of nature and heaven in the midst of thee; the sunshine 
of divine love descending upon all; and thy beautiful banner, 
with the olive branch now woven among its stars and stripes, 
sheltering beneath its folds some four hundred millions of 
happy beings! And a voice within me seems to say, "All this 
and more shalt though be, O America, if thou wilt." 

Then by the love I have for every spire of grass that grows 



THE END OF THE AGES. 319 

upon thy broad prairies; for every rill that courses down the 
sides of thy grand old mountains; for every sand upon the 
thousands of miles of thy seacoasts; for all thy noble and free 
people as my fellow-citizens and brothers; and by the pride I 
feel in thy great name among the nations — I exhort thee to 
awake! arise! and shake thyself from the dust and <go forward 
— forward! 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PRESENT PERPLEXITY OF ALL NATIONS AND THE ONLY WAY 

OUT OF IT. 

All nations disturbed and anxious; Causes of the same — Discontent of masses 
— Repression fails — World's great year closed; Harvest time of old In- 
stitutions; Reconstruction needed; Remedies found in natural laws; 
Indifferent whether Kings or Presidents bear rule, when Nature rules all; 
No disloyalty in the plans; Bad men disturbers; Moral sentiment in the 
ascendant, if organized; The "healing of the nations;" The "New 
Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

TN the language of an ancient symbolism it is predicted of 
^ the latter days, that there shall be "distress of nations, 
with perplexity; the sea in the waves roaring, men's hearts 
failing them for fear and for looking after those things that 
are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be 
shaken." * 

There is at the present time scarcely a nation upon the earth, 
possessed of any very positive characteristics, which is not 
"in distress" and "perplexity," the hearts of the ruling classes 
failing them in a pervading, indefinite, and for the most part 
unspoken apprehension of some startling events and changes 
that are about to happen. In all nations, this apprehension is 
largely traceable to one common cause — the muttering dis- 
contents and threatened uprising of the masses of the people, fit- 
tingly symbolized by "the sea and the waves roaring." France, 

*Luke XXI. 25, 26. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 32I 

Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Austria, as well as England and 
the United States, are all understratified with the volcanic 
fires of Communism and other subversive social doctrines, 
which, ever and anon, are exhibiting symptomatic spasms and 
local eruptions. Colleges, universities and popular legislative 
councils, as well as workshops and factories, are pervaded with 
this spirit of revolutionary discontent; and kings as they ride 
in their carriages through the public streets, know not at 
what moment the bullet of the assassin, fired from a private 
window, may pierce them to the vitals. 

In bygone ages, popular tendencies of this kind were met by 
the overwhelming power of repression. And at those times all 
this was legitimate and for the highest good of the largest 
number, even including those who were subjected to the re- 
pressing force. It is not, however, in the designs of that 
impartial Creator, who made all men on one and the same plan, 
and with the germs of the same faculties, powers, and wants, 
that any portion of humanity should forever be subjected to the 
repression and oppression of their human rulers, who have no 
right even to rule them except for their good. And now that 
the age of ripeness, the close of the world's Great Year, and 
the harvest time of all past -human institutions has come, 
the policy of mere repression will no longer avail — indeed 
nothing will avail short of a reconstruction of human 
conditions on the basis of natural and eternal Law. 
Emperors, Kings, Princes, Presidents, Governors, Phi- 
losophers and Priests are therefore admonished as by the 
voice of God, to inquire deeply and unselfishly into the 
causes of this all pervading discontent among the people; what 
are its portents with reference to the future of governments 
and the progress of the human race, and what measures should 
be instituted to secure an easy and peaceful gliding into those 

21 



322 THE END OF THE AGES. 

political and social changes which all the "signs of the times" 
prove to be inevitable. 

By a correct apprehension of the principles involved in the 
system of nature, and of the laws applicable in different and 
corresponding degrees in the divine government of the uni- 
verse, the existing deviations from the divine order of things 
may be known, and the sure remedy for all present disorders 
may be indicated. And what are those natural principles and 
divine laws, if not the same which we have pointed out and elu- 
cidated in preceding pages? We repeat and press the question, 
What are they, if not these? and we call upon the philosophers of 
the world to answer. Artificial schemes and contrivances of 
human imagination, we have had in abundance, and we have 
witnessed the utter and pitiable failure of them all; but we have 
waited long without witnessing the production of any exposi- 
tion of natural principles so comprehensive, so self-evidently 
true, and so applicable to all the exigencies of the age, as those 
we have here read and translated from the Book of Nature. We 
have listened to fractional truths and one-sided theories and 
special local and temporary expedients, long enough to become 
settled in the utter despair of the effectual cure of any of the 
world's disorders by any one or all of them. The nations can 
wait no longer. They must speedily philosophize and move 
in some new direction, or be swallowed by the all devouring 
Sphynx which is propounding those new and strange riddles. 

And now, assuming, as we have a right to do, in the light 
of self-evidence and logical demonstration, and utter absence 
of all disproofs, that the philosophy of the foregoing pages is, 
so far as it goes, a true transcript from the pages of universal 
nature, we submit that this certainly is rendered doubly cer- 
tain by the complete solution which it affords, of the social 
problem that is now pressing, more or less upon all civilized 



THE END OF THE AGES. 323 

nations. It carries thought and institutes peaceful action, 
down beneath the very foundations of all existing political 
government. The question whether the government shall be 
monarchical or republican, and whether kings or presidents 
shall bear rule, it leaves untouched, inasmuch as the liberty, 
prosperity and happiness of the people may be equally secured 
under either — -provided the. governmental structure shall simply 
rest upon the plan of nature as we have endeavored to explain 
it. Indeed it may be said that a "monarchy" with a govern- 
ment constructed upon these principles, would be virtually a 
republic, and a republic, too, of a higher order than any 
which has yet been known upon the earth. 

If kings and their ministerial officers, perceiving these 
truths, will proceed at once to teach them to their people, and 
institute measures to put them into practical operation, they 
will endear themselves to the masses, strengthen their 
governments, and establish peace and prosperity throughout 
their dominions. If, on the other hand, kings fail to appre- 
hend these newly elucidated truths, or apprehending them, 
strangely refuse to follow their guidance, their people, without 
violating any civil or statutory law, can take them up and act upon 
them, all the same, for they involve laws of nature which 
underlie and dominate all laws merely artificial and human. 
They can, in the capacity of human beings, resting upon their 
natural rights, organize themselves with reference to the in- 
terests of Raw Material ; of the mechanical and manufacturing 
arts; of Distribution, embracing the carrying business and all 
branches of commerce and trade, and with reference to all the 
other great departments of human interests which we have 
named, and so long as they remain peaceable no enactments 
of human legislatures and no edicts of kings and emperors can 
justly disturb them. They can hold their conventicles, 



324 THE END OF THE AGES. 

establish their propaganda and advocate their principles from 
rostrum and through the press without uttering one word of 
treason, or exciting one throb of popular and disorderly turbu- 
lence. Nay, if they understand these truths thoroughly and 
confine themselves strictly to their dissemination and practical 
outworking, all wise and honest kings and other rulers, and all 
wise and honest men of every grade, will be compelled 
to commend and encourage their action, as tending only 
to the highest and noblest ends of human aspiration. And 
thus a moral force will be exerted which will be omnipo- 
tent for good and which no adverse power on earth can long 
withstand. 

Tell us, critic, we pray you, why not so? And how otherwise, 
all these given conditions being observed ? We know that 
there are still bad men — naturally born thieves and robbers — 
in every nation of the world. These, indeed, have no desire 
for the improvement of the conditions of human society, but 
love disorder and violence for the excitement it brings, and 
the opportunity it affords for plunder. These, insinuating 
themselves into the ranks of reformers, will sometimes seek to 
complicate them with treasonable utterances and insurrection- 
ary acts, and they must be repelled and repressed as common 
enemies. Others there are who, thoughtless and passion- 
swayed, will seek to inoculate the reform movements with all 
sorts of impious and atheistic notions, with all sorts of absurd 
and abominable ideas concerning marriage and the general 
relation of the sexes and with absurd heresies concerning the 
tenure of property, and whose doctrines could not generally 
prevail without working out the destruction of all human 
society. 

But on the other hand, the moral sentiment in every enlight- 
ened nation is undoubtedly in the ascendant; and this, properly 



THE END OF THE AGES. 325 

organized, will be able to frown down and overbear all disorderly 
and impure elements of the kind just named, and carry on the 
proposed reform to a triumphant issue. 

If the political and social doctrines we have been urging on 
the attention of the reader, and particularly that of Interest 
Representation in the Body Politic, are the true ones, then we 
submit that they present the grand Catholicon that will be for 
the "healing of the nations;" that until they are adopted and 
carried out, no king can sit easily on his throne, and no human 
government, of whatever kind, can be secured against popular 
disorders and perturbations and final anarchy; for we repeat, 
that the old governmental ideas throughout the world have 
ripened and borne all the useful fruit they can bear, and that 
their time has now closed. Let us hope that the nations will be wise 
and that the "new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness" will 
be ushered in with as little violence as possible. And this we 
believe it will be, provided some competent and suitable nation 
will take the lead in the exemplification of these ideas and 
their practical workings. Which then shall be that nation ? 
We will endeavor to find an answer in our next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

WHAT NATION SHALL LEAD? AND THE GRAND PROCESSION 

THAT WILL FOLLOW IN THE ROAD TO THE UNI- 
VERSAL REPUBLIC. 

Hint from the Centennial Exhibition; Correllation of Races and Nations — 
Anglo-Saxon Race with its ingredients; Elements of universality; Hence 
its power to permeate; Extensive geographical dominions; Seeds of new 
Republics and civilizations; Lost tribes of Israel; American Branch of 
Anglo-Saxon Race; The Race sublimated and farther universalized; Now 
hand in hand with England America must furnish the Central Idea; Must 
sound the trumpet of the Jubilee; Mission oi France, Germany ^.xiA Italy — 
Triune specialties and future tripartite Republic; Russia and her mission; 
Japan and her mission; These seven great nations the active forces; Aux- 
iliary and subordinate nations; Negative nationalities; America to sound 
the march; Why others must follow; The Universal Republic of Nations; 
The world's ^/rtr(?/^i3/f. 

TN the summer of 1876, after spending several days at the 
-'- Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, examining and 
comparing specimens of the useful and fine arts brought to- 
gether from all the nations of the earth, and cogitating on the 
distinctive characteristics which these specimens evinced in 
the different races and peoples who produced them, I made 
this minute in my note book: 

" The upshot of the whole exhibition is, that upon the great Anglo-Saxon 
race has rested heretofore, and will rest hereafter, the burden of modern prog- 
ress in civilization and the elevation of the race of man." 

Being just at that moment in a glow of pride for the mag- 
nificent achievements of my own youthful nation, the staple of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 327 

whose population is composed principally of that Anglo-Saxon 
race, I may, as I am now forced to confess, have been a little 
unjust in withholding some necessary qualifications from this 
mainly true remark. A sense of justice forces the acknowl- 
edgement, that the Anglo-Saxon race could have done little 
in comparison to what it has done, had it not been for the 
conditions and aids supplied by all other races, and that the 
office of burden-bearing belongs quite as much to the legs and 
feet as to the head of the universal Man. Reflection opens a 
still farther and grander thought — that a uniform order of di- 
vine designs, projected in the form of universal and eternal 
laws which has produced such a wonderfully perfect corrella- 
tion and interpendence of all things in the physical and moral 
worlds, must have established a similar correllation among the 
different races of mankind, and the different nations of the 
earth — so that when progress in that outworking of the law 
shall have arrived at a ripened stage, each of these races and 
nations shall take its place, with all others, in a grand, inter- 
blending sum total — the one universal family of man. In con- 
templating the distinctive characteristics of the several promi- 
nent races and nations, and the relative functions they seem 
adapted to perform in the organism of the universal race, the 
facts seem naturally to arrange themselves in the following 
order: 

ENGLAND. 

Beginning with the English speaking race, we find that 
the ingredients of which it is composed, and the conditions 
under which it has grown up to its present status, have been 
such as to utilize in it a large breadth and variety of those 
stirpeal characteristics which belong to the human race in its 



328 THE END OF THE AGES. 

unitized wholeness and of which the isolated details are distrib- 
uted among other particular nations only as specialties. The 
kindred tribes of Saxons and Angles which conquered and 
settled Britain in the fifth century, combining with the abori- 
ginal Celtic inhabitants of the Island, were a vigorous, war- 
like, enterprising and freedom-loving people. The Danes, a 
hardy and warlike race, which, by subsequent conquests com- 
bined somewhat extensively with the population of Britain, 
added another element of vigor which, though rude and bar- 
barous at first, as were all others, had its share of influence in 
determining the future course of development of the English 
race. 

Early in the tenth century a horde of Danish freebooters, 
under their leader Rollo, took possession of that portion of 
France called Neustria, subsequently Normandie, whence, 
after intermarrying with the French people, and undergoing 
their refining influence during a century and a half, they in- 
vaded and conquered England, and added another positive 
element to the English race — combining vigor with some re- 
fining tendencies. But notwithstanding these infusions of 
characteristic ingredients from other quarters, the great staple 
of the English population remained, and remains to this day, 
Anglo-Saxon. 

Thus constituted, and inheriting the patriotism of the abori- 
ginal Britons, the sturdy firmness of the Saxons and Angles, 
the boldness and maritime proclivities of the old Danish Vi- 
kings, and the refining intellectual tendencies derived through 
the Normans from the French, it may be said that the Anglo- 
Saxon race embodies in itself a larger representation of the 
dominant qualities of aggregate humanity, severally specialized 
only in other nations, than is contained in any other one race. 

These aggregated characteristics have given this race a 



THE END OF THE AGES. 329 

power to permeate, so to speak, the whole race of mankind 
which does not exist in any other special branch of the 
human family. 

The insular position of England, added to all these other con- 
siderations, has contributed to make her a great ttiai-itinie and 
commercial power, and enabled her to plant her flag on all 
quarters of the globe, so as to be able truly to boast, that the 
sun never sets upon it. Her colonies as lights for the diffusion 
of her advanced ideas are planted in every clime and her lan- 
guage is spoken by a far larger number of the earth's inhab- 
itants than any other language. 

It is in this way that she has become an approximal univer- 
sality as to her power and influence in the world. She may be 
likened to a great banyan tree from whose broad branches 
shoots have been sent down to the earth, which have, in turn, 
taken root and become trunks, and sent forth other branches 
and shoots, and these still others, until she has covered large 
portions of the earth's surface. And although the old parent 
stalk may have become somewhat doted and worm eaten, and 
may need some rejuvenating sap to adapt it to the exigencies 
of life in a new age, even this desideratum is likely to be sup- 
plied with the impending and inevitable future change in the 
current of ideas and events; while her young offshoots are al- 
ready shaking from their branches the seeds of new republics 
and civilizations. 

The Anglo-Saxon race thus possesses elements of universality 
such as can in no sense be predicted of any other one race — 
unless it be that singular race in view of whose prospective 
generation, its archaic Father Abraham was promised that 
through it, all nations and families of the earth should be blest, 
and which according to some mysterious behest and in fulfil- 
ment of prophecy, is now "sifted among all nations as corn is 



;^;^0 THE END. OF THE AGES. 

sifted in a sieve. "f And as if to augment the importance of. 
this thought, strange to say, some English and Scotch writers 
are now engaged in bringing to light a class of wonderful and 
hitherto unnoticed facts which seemingly go to prove the 
identity of the Saxons and Angles with the lost tribes of 
Israel. The evidence of this consists in the wonderful simi- 
larities and identities of the laws, customs, institutions, weights 
and measures and even of the language of the ancient Saxons 
and Angles with those of the lost tribes.* On the question 
here mooted, however, I am unable to express any decided 
opinion and simply mention this matter for what it may seem 
to be worth. 

ANGLO-SAXON AMERICA. 

But whatever may be affirmed as to the universality of the 
characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race, applies with still 
greater force to that sublimated branch of it which, with far- 
ther elemental accretions and assimilations, comprises the 
population of the United States. The early colonies of this 
country, settled from England, were, as a rule, composed of 
the most hardy, enterprising, courageous and freedom-loving 
men that England could afford. From the early stages of 
their colonial self-governments, they knew their rights and had 
the courage to assert and maintain them against the oppres- 
sive taxations and restrictions of the mother country, and 
finally to assert and maintain their independence as sover- 
eign states, united as one nation. England, irritated by her 



f Amos IX. 9. 

* A noble English lady, the Countess of C , has been so kind as to 

forward me some numbers of a well written periodical entitled, ''Life from the 
Dead,'" published by W. H. Guest, 2g Paternoster Row, London, and expressly 
devoted to this idea. ,. . . 



THE END OF THE AGES. 33 1 

discomfiture in tlie war of the revolution, insulted the young 
nation's flag upon the ocean; searched our merchant ships for 
British subjects; fired upon our men-of-war unprepared to re- 
sist; plotted for the re-annexation of the New England States 
to Canada; compelled our declaration of war against her in 
1812; aided and abetted the rebels in the late war of the re- 
bellion; — but when she was compelled to see America, despite 
of all her jealousies, marching steadily onward in a line of prog- 
ress and prosperity such as has not been exemplified by any 
other nation since the foundation of the world — subduing her 
forests, building her cities, extending her settlements over her 
thousands of miles of virgin territory, developing the arts and 
sciences, increasing in wealth and opulence and throttling her 
slaveholder's rebellion as a mighty giant, — John Bull pats his 
big son upon the back and says: " Brave boy, I like you, I am 
proud of you ! You are a chip of the old block ! " 

Well, sturdy old John, give us your hand. We are "all 
right" now; time and the force of events have made us so. 
And now let common sense and consanguinity, and a common 
language and religion keep us so, and having less talk about our 
own merely selfish national interests, let us go forth, hand in 
hand, in a friendship and love never more to be interrupted 
and see what we can do for the interests of civilization and 
the human race as well as for each other. 

But the main point is this: — that the Anglo-Saxon settlers of 
this country and whose descendants still constitute the staple 
of its population — composed as they were, in general, of the 
most vigorous, courageous, enterprising and freedom-loving 
specimens of that most courageous, enterprising and freedom- 
loving race, have been supplemented by correspondingly ad- 
vanced elements from nearly all other races, who have been 
attracted to our shores by our free institutions, our broad 



332 THE END OF THE AGES. 

territories, our vast natural resources, and our almost unlimited 
room for the play of every mental aspiration. 

These universal stirpeal characteristics, synthesized and ren- 
dered homogeneous as they have been in a great degree dur- 
ing the course of a century of free thought, have resulted and 
will continue to result in a philosophical, political, social and 
religious IDEA which is more nearly the central IDEA of 
the whole huinan race^ than any that could have been generated 
in any other nation or among any other people under the whole 
heavens. 

It is America, therefore, as the epitome of all the world — 
it is America as the link between the beginning and end of the 
circle of civilization that surrounds the globe, and that is com- 
plete in her — it is America, as the herald standing on the 
mountain top of human progress, that now sounds the trumpet 
of jubilee to all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, pro- 
claiming the great central truth which will make all free, pros- 
perous and happy, and bring all into the unity of spirit and the 
bonds of peace. 

But while asserting this high prerogative to which God and 
nature have called the nation, which unites the extreme west 
with the extreme east, we must not even seem to be invidious 
in regard to other races and nationalities. Truth compels the 
admission that some of these are greater in certain specialities 
of useful development than our own nation, and without either 
of them something would be wanting to a matured and per- 
fected whole. 

FRANCE. 

France may be mentioned as one brilliant example. Her 
people, impulsive and vivacious and possessing great social co- 
hesion, are distinguished from all others in the amenities of 



THE END OF THE AGES. 333 

polite intercourse, and in all those arts and sciences in which 
the five senses have principal play. There is no nation that has 
attained so high a degree of surf ace polish in arts of all kinds as 
she, and no nation equals her in applying to the economical 
uses of the physical man all the resources of nature and art. 
Thus she is the teacher of material utilities, fancies and re- 
finements, and enriches the whole world by her contributions 
of the same. The world cannot do without France, just as 
she is and as she will become in the course of her further prog- 
ress, but the whole world could not become an extended 
France, without detriment to the whole world and even to 
France herself. 

GERMANY. 

Germany, with her patient, frugal and thrifty peasantry in the 
field, her toiling mechanics in the workshop — amassing wealth 
from low wages and small savings, her philosophers lucubrat- 
ing by the midnight lamp and sweeping the fields of meta- 
physics, philology and the abstract sciences with vast ranges 
of thought — Germany, the home of the Beethovens, the Mozarts 
and the Wagners, who have filled the world with the match- 
less harmonies of the oratorio, the symphony and the choral 
song — how could the world do without Germany, just as she 
is, and just as she will become in the natural course of her 
future progress ? And yet the human race could notall be Ger- 
manized without curtailment of its full range of powers and 
capabilities or without belittlement even of Germany herself. 

ITALY. 

Italy, rich in her composite stirpeal elements, in which the 
Herulii, Longobards, Goths, Vandals and Danes mingle with 
her old Roman stock, and are fused into homogeneity in her 



334 THE END OF THE AGES. 

bland atmosphere and under her clear blue skies — Italy, the 
birthplace of medieval republics and the home of the Boccac- 
cios, the Dantes and Petrarchs of inspired thought and poetry; 
of the Carreggios and Angelos and Raphaels of unequaled art; 
of the Bellinis, the Rossinis, and Verdis of heart-stirring song 
— dreamy, imaginative, poetical Italy, the land of sentiment, 
emotion and love, and now, at length, having broken the 
chains of "infallible" popish authority, the land also of great 
possibilities in intellectual and social progress — how could the 
world do without Italy also, just as she is and as she is capable 
of being in the course of her future progress? But the whole 
world could not become a copy of Italy without losing much 
that the whole world needs, and which Italy herself does not 
furnish. 

Of the Grand Man, France, as to her most prominent char- 
acteristics, represents the external, sensuous and physical 
nature ; Germany represents the intellectual and rational nature ; 
Italy represents mainly the sentimental, emotional nature. 
Neither, in itself considered, is a fully rounded whole. To- 
gether they would form a harmonious triune system in which the 
universals of the race would be represented with approximal 
completeness. I see in their future the triune Repicblic with a 
subordinate autonomy for each. 

RUSSIA. 

And then look again at that vast empire which, bounded on 
the north by the frozen ocean, stretches from the Baltic Sea 
on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east, and said to com- 
prise about one-seventh part of the land surface of the globe. 
Bearing in her capacious bosom nine races and seventy millions 
of inhabitants, whose present intellectual and moral range is 



THE END OF THE AGES. 335 

from the highest culture down to the lowest barbarism, 
Russia may be said to represent, in the diverse genius of her 
people, developed and undeveloped, pretty nearly the totality 
of the natural aptitudes, tastes, tendencies and proclivities 
averaged in the universal race of mankind. With vast 
resources of agriculture, forestry and useful minerals, with 
fuel and water power subservient to all kinds of manufactur- 
ing and mechanical industry, and with the modern system of 
railroads and telegraphy now at her command for internal inter- 
course, commerce and trade — a wise, humane, impartially just 
and persistently firm government of Russia cannot fail to work 
out for herself a glorious future. And overcapping, as she 
does, all Asia and half of Europe, as with a boreal crown, her 
powerful influence will, as she advances, be reflected upon 
many contiguous nations and tribes, for the most part either 
semi-barbarous or representing civilizations that have become 
stagnant and effete. 

A marvel upon the map of the world is grand, imperial 
Russia, and considering her geographical situation and vast 
extent, the character of her government in the past and in 
the present, as the one which, above all others, is the best 
adapted to the exigencies of her case ; the varieties of races and 
tribes that are slowly becoming homogeneous under her sway, 
and the needs of contacting nations on her southern borders, 
which, in the course of her future progress, will imbibe her 
civilizing influences — it is difficult to resist the conclusion that 
she is the offspring of Supernal Design. And yet, in this 
closing up of the grand cycle of the world, when old things 
shall pass away, and all things shall be made new, Russia, like 
all other nations, must soon change and enter upon a new course 
of progress, or encounter the most frightful disorders resulting 
from the fermentations of her discontented masses, clamoring 



336 THE END OF THE AGES. 

for those natural rights which are vouchsafed to them by the 
laws of an impartial God. Then, O Sovereign of the great 
northern Empire, who hast already earned the admiration and 
affection of all good and wise men throughout the world, by 
the imperial ukase by which thou hast lately broken the chains 
of twenty-million serfs — be wise, be just — take counsel of the 
spirit of the age, which is the spirit of God, stirring the hearts 
of the multitudes and nations ;^ — be a father to your people, 
and grant them those wise reforms on which their progress 
and happiness depends; and by a firm and energetic sway 
whose absolute justice no one can impugn, keep Russia from 
division, dismemberment and anarchy; for the world cannot do 
without Russia, just as she is, and as she is capable of becom- 
ing under the law of natural progress.* 

JAPAN. 

Japan, in her home of islands has, as we have already 
seen, become another conspicuous and highly interesting 
object on the map of the world. Her people, consisting of the 
noblest branch of the great Mongolian race, are proud, nat- 
urally intelligent, and are characterized by a love of personal 
freedom and a sense of natural justice to both sexes, perhaps 
not to be found among any other Oriental race. From time 
immemorial proudly hiding herself in the seclusion of her 
ocean retreat, disdaining contact with all nations except the 
one to which tradition attributes her origin, she developed a 
peculiar civilization which is well worthy the study of the 
philosopher. After passing through her various stages of 
infancy, youth, adolescence, maturity, ripeness and old age, 
she finally reached the climax of her cycle of development, 
worked up and exhausted all her vitalizing ideas and ceased to 



Written in 1S78. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 337 

respond to the higher wants of her people. Flanking the 
coast of eastern Asia, covering China, the kingdom of Corea. 
and extending northward well nigh to the Russian possession, 
she was well situated to catch and transmit the first auroral 
beams of the newest, and ideally, the most perfect civilization, 
as they streamed up over the Pacific Ocean to the eastward. 
And an embassy was organized to sail eastward to America, to 
see what this new light could mean; and intercourse was 
opened between her and America on the very year of the close of 
the fourth siibcycle of America s development, as we have already 
seen. Thence intercourse was opened by her with the rest of 
the world; and Japan awoke to a new life as the sun of a new 
age rose upon her; and since then, her progress in all liberal 
ideas, arts and sciences has transcended all examples afforded 
in the history of nations.* With a population of 34,000,000, 
among whom it is the boast that there are no paupers and only 
between six and seven thousand convicts in prison; with laws 
so few, simple and plainly defined that professional lawyers are 
not needed; with universally prevailing habits of industry, 
frugality and economy, principally the heritage of the past; 
and with a newly awakened and unexampled zeal in the 
adoption of the arts and sciences and the appropriation of the 
improvements of all other nations, Japan cannot fail to prove 
an important factor in the future and general destiny of the 
human race. 

These seven great nations, England, with her Colonies, 
Anglo-Saxon America, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and 
Japan — may be considered the principal active forces upon 
which the work of carrying forward the race to a higher stage 
of political and social development will mainly rest. But 
besides these there are several other and minor powers lying 



•Written in 1878. 

22 



338 THE END OF THE AGES. 

more or less in the general current of progress and which will 
readily fall into the line of the common march, and serve as 
auxiliary forces in the advancing movement of the world. 
Among these may be mentioned Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, 
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc. The Austrian Empire 
contains many noble and potential elements, but the heter- 
ogeneity of a population comprising so many races, speaking so 
many different languages, and marked by strong and dis- 
similar characteristics, will probably necessitate some im- 
portant changes in its structure before its functional powers 
in the organic body of the race can become clearly defined and 
properly available.'^ Spain, still creed-bound and reluctant to 
leave the anchorage ground of the sixteenth century, will 
probably need the discipline of a few more revolutions, and 
the force of some popular explosions, to impel her forward in 
the line of progress; but even she will, and must, move at no 
distant time or be absorbed into other powers.* And nearly 
the same may be said of the Spanish and Portugese States of 
Central and South America. 

But besides these positive nationalities in which the main 
force of the world's progress naturally resides, and those semi- 
positive and neutral ones which will naturally soon fall in as 
auxiliaries, there are large nationalities, with teeming popula- 
tions, which seem to represent the "night-side" of the human 
race, and which, for centuries, have been slumbering in 
stagnation, seemingly unconscious of the very meaning of the 
word "progress." The Chinese, the Hindoos, the nations of 
Farther India and of the East Indian Archipelago, the Persians, 
the Arabs, the Turks, the modern Egyptians, etc., fall more 
or less under this general designation. Monuments of the 
primeval conditions of tribal and nationalized humanity. 



*Written in 1878. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 339 

conservations of the childhood stage of the race, as they 
might be called, and withal, recipients and conservators of 
some grand truths in philosophy, religion, and the practicali- 
ties of family, social and governmental life, they bear to the 
occidental nations some lessons of deep importance which it 
would be well to study. Nevertheless it is true also of those 
old patriarchal empires and kingdoms — that they have lived out 
their period; that their mission is accomplished; that they have 
worked and exhausted their vitalizing ideas, and that they, too, 
must now move forward in the current of the world's progress 
or be trampled under foot and destroyed. It will be im- 
possible for them to withstand the light of this age when 
focalized upon them, as it will be, by the more progressive 
nations, with all the advanced science of the nineteenth 
century and with all the appliances of steamships, railroads 
and telegraphs at their command. 

The whole world, then, waits for America to sound the 
march and lead the van of political and social progress. This 
office is legitimately assigned to her by thecomposite elements 
and catholic genius of her population; by her advanced ideas, 
and by her geographical position as the connecting link be- 
tween the ending and beginning of the circle of civilization 
which now girdles the globe. 

If it were merely for our own interests and happiness as a 
nation, that the proposed new F?-imary Movements in Politics 
were here urged for practical execution, the motive ought to 
be sufficient to prompt immediate action. But how should we 
not be stimulated to this action by the additional and still more 
noble motive of becoming the leader of the world in the most 
sublime step of progress that ever has been taken since the 
birth of the human race! That the American Republic, by her 
grand example, has already exerted a most potent influence 



34° THE END OF THE AGES. 

upon all nations composed of thoughtful and mobile popula- 
tions, no one will deny. But how much greater will be the 
power of her example in adjusting herself to nature's eternal 
laws, and harmonizing all her interests, and securing the high- 
est possible degree of prosperity and happiness for her peop'e, 
by adopting a course of social and political action which can- 
not have the slightest possible tendency except to that grand 
result. 

The very year on which America decisively adopts the 
truths and plans of action that have been submitted, and be- 
gins to reap only the fi?-st fruits of the same, the nations of 
Europe will be forced to admire and applaud her course and 
then will gradually be swept into the same current of reform 
as by an irresistible impulse, seeing that it is their only salva- 
tion. Starting from the basis of identical principles, each 
may have some non-essentially different modes of applying 
them, as determined by preestablished habits of political 
thought and action, but the result will be practically the same. 
England will quickly feel the potency of the example, and her 
people will agitate for Parliamentary legislation in accordance 
with its light. She will then see more clearly why God has 
given her so firm a foothold on Southern Asia; and in what- 
ever part of the globe English ideas and Anglo-Saxon energy 
have become established, the leaven of the new system will 
immediately begin to work. The nations of continental Eu- 
rope will find in the new system the solution of all their social 
problems, and the quietus of all their revolutionary agitations; 
and as soon as America, England and her colonies, France, Ger- 
many, Italy, Russia and Old Japan, shall come, even though it 
be but partially, under the guidance of the new system, its pro- 
gressive development will be assured, and its ultimate adoption 
by even the most stolid nations of the earth will be rendered 



THE END OF THE AGES. 341 

certain; for it is not in the nature of mankind and human 
governments long to resist that which manifestly comes to 
bless them. 

As these ideas are diffused through the earth, and reduced 
to practice, the nations will more clearly see their reciprocal 
relations to each other as common members of the great 
Family of Man. The whole world will gradually approximate 
the condition of one Grand Nation, of which the existing 
nations, each preserving an autonomy suitable to the peculiar 
genius of its own people, will be quasi, coordinate provinces. 
As the process of assimilation and unitization of these pro- 
ceeds, the existing causes of jealousies and quarrels between 
them will diminish until they will finally disappear in the 
establishment of perfect harmony of interests, and in relations 
of perfect reciprocity and fraternity. A universal Congress 
of nations will be convoked, to which as an ultimate arbiter 
will be referred all questions of national difference. Custom 
houses will be abolished, trade will be free throughout the 
earth; war will be banished from the world forever and ever; 
the human race will be one vast Family, and the visions of in- 
spired bards and prophets of old will be triumphantly fulfilled. 

Through the mists and darkness which cloud the horizon of 
the future, gleams this blessed star of Hope. May the nations 
keep their eyes fixed steadily upon it until, more nearly ap- 
proaching it as they travel forward, it shall glow as a glorious 
sun, bathing the whole world in its beautiful effulgence. 

To the successful unitization of the race, however, another 
grand centralizing and dominating Force is necessary, of 
which we have not here distinctly spoken; and that is a 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION. Concerning this some basic thoughts 
will be submitted in the ensuing and concluding chapters. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

BASIC OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 

Part I. 

Religion a necessity of society; A Universal Religion necessary to Universal 
Union; Search for its principles; Supposed Universal Council of Chris- 
tians, Buddhists, Mohammedans, etc.; Jargon of discussion; On the 
point of disruption; The "Gray-haired Scribe" called to the platform; 
His prayer; His discourse; i. Concerning the existing forms of religion; 
2. Specialties and careers of religious systems; A higher and better one 
than all of them now needed; 3. Resources of written revelation; 4. All 
parts of the scheme mutually consistent; Appeals to the Book of Nature; 
5. How to read it — Correspondences; Lessons — I. Law of gravitation, 
physical and moral — II. Heat and Light — Love and Wisdom; These 
teach the broadest outlines of the Universal religion; The speaker takes 
his seat but is urged and consents to go on. 

IN preceding pages the proposition has, in various forms 
of phraseology, been already maintained: That the su- 
preme light of the conscience of any nation or people, the 
gauge of its moral life, and the source of its higher and dom- 
inating impulses to political and social action, consists in its rec- 
ogfiized sta?idard of religious faith and practice. It may indeed, 
be confidently asserted, that human nature, unperverted and 
left to its normal tendencies, centers itself in the religious senti- 
ment, and that nations free from the degenerating tendencies 
of excessive luxury and sensuality — will, as a rule, suffer 



THE END OF THE AGES. 343 

themselves to be despoiled of everything else rather than of 
their Religion. For this very reason it is that, in the misdirec- 
tion of this sentiment, religious wars are sometimes waged, and 
that indeed these are usually the most fierce and obstinate of 
all wars, involving in their train, passions that are even very 
irreligious, and causing more blood to flow than wars origin- 
ating in any other human impulse whatsoever. Paradoxical as 
it may at first seem, this in itself is a proof of the supreme 
hold that a nation's religion has upon the affections of its 
people; and we think history would prove it a fact of universal 
application, that in proportion as a nation loses its faith in an 
overruling Power, and becomes indifferent to the religious 
sentiment, the bonds of its social union become relaxed, and 
the work of disintegration, lawlessness and anarchy proceed. 
And it is a significant but by no means strange fact, that such 
a thing as an Atheistic nation has no exemplication in the 
annals of the human race; and this is simply because it would 
be impossible for mankind to remain united in governmental 
compact for any great length of time without that binding and 
cementing principle which can alone be furnished in a common 
object of supreme reverence and aspiration, and a common 
source of final authority. 

Our aspirations for the tmiversal harmony and fraternal 
union of the race, therefore, must be more or less clouded 
with doubts and uncertainties until we can find at least the 
basic outlines of some form of religion which, appealing to the 
assenting reason and intuitions of mankind in all enlightened 
nations, has the intrinsic power to make itself universally 
acceptable; and to the sublime and concurrent effort to 
trace the bold outlines of a religion answering these require- 
ments, the better and truer minds of all nations are now 
invited. 



344 THE END OF THE AGES. 

SUPPOSED UNIVERSAL COUNCIL.* 

As this invitation flows out tiirough all the sympathetic cur- 
rents of spiritual telegraphy which envelop the earth as in a 
network, I seem, in imagination, to see the religiously indoc- 
trinated minds of all nations awakened to an intense interest, 
and drawing together in a vast Universal Council. Thus as- 
sembled Brammin, Buddhist, Parsee, Jew, Mohammedan, 
Christian, with representations of the various sects of all these 
— each, firmly established in the faith of his own particular 
form of religion, desires to erect it into the universal standard, 
and urges its claims by logical arguments, and appeals to sa- 
cred books, which seem almost conclusive till others are heard. 
Then each addresses himself to the effort of refutation, and 
points out seeming errors and imperfections in all creeds ex- 
cept his own; and so cogent are the reasonings in both these 
directions, that, to an impartial listener it would almost seem 
that all of these forms of belief are true and false by turns. 

It soon becomes evident that this mode of approaching the 
question must necessarily be fruitless, and recourse is had to 
the appointment of a few representative spokesmen to present 
the claims of these various systems of doctrine and worship. 
Though by this plan the proceedings are simplified, even yet no 
decision is found to be attainable on which all can agree. 
And long, and loud, and boisterous were the discussions, and 
yet there seemed no nearer approach to an agreement; and in 
the desperation of the critical moment when the convention 



* In having recourse to this fanciful picture of a Universal Council, we in- 
dulge the hope that the reader will excuse any seeming incompatibility of this 
device with the gravity of so great and dignified a subject, in view of the ad- 
vantages it seems to offer on the score of popular attractiveness and to many 
minds, even, perhaps, of logical clearness. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 345 

seemed about to break up in confusion, an aged and venerable 
sire, with broad brow and benignant countenance, arose and 
said: 

"O venerable priests, philosophers, and learned men of the 
nations: Be not in haste to depart. The gray-haired Scribe 
seated obscurely in yonder corner, with inkhorn and pen mak- 
ing notes of the opinions here expressed, and comparing them 
with charts and diagrams of science and books of holy writ 
lying before him, has not yet been heard. I perceive by the 
light of his countenance that thoughts are stirring within him 
and seeking for utterance. Let us listen in silence to his 
words. Peradventure we may profit by them." 

And the multitude answered: "We will hear the gray-haired 
Scribe " — and they bore him with acclamation to the speaker's 
platform. 

WORDS OF THE GRAY-HAIRED SCRIBE. 

Then the Scribe reverently lifting up his eyes to heaven 
said: 

"O Thou Infinite and Eternal Spirit, who art the loving and 
impartial Father of All. These, thy children, of various com- 
plexions, climes and nationalities, are crying for light, more 
light. They are seeking to know thy truth in its purity, that 
they may live thereby. Extinguish in me all remnants of vain 
ambition. Pervade me by thy own spirit. Fill me with 
universal love. Make me humble as a little child, and yet 
give me abundantly of thy divine wisdom. Send thine angels to 
quicken my brain, to shape my thoughts, and to put words 
into my mouth, that an answer may be returned to these yearn- 
ing hearts which Thou canst wholly approve, and which will 
stand for all time. " ■ 



346 THE END OF THE AGES. 

And all the people said, "Amen !" And after a pause of 
reverent silence, the Scribe continued: 

"And now, brothers, trembling and yet confidently I re- 
spond to your call, giving you that which is given to me, and 
that only. It will be for you to accept or reject according to 
your best light." 

I. CONCERNING THE EXISTING FORMS OF RELIGION. 

"All these, considered in their primeval simplicity, and 
aside from the factitious glosses, and mistaken interpretations 
with which men have loaded them, have a common origin, a 
common aim and are pervaded with a common spirit. That 
Ineffable Source of love and wisdom who originated the world 
and all created intelligences, can not be charged with partiality 
towards any of his children or any of the tribes, nations or 
churches into which these have become divided. When He 
said 'Let their be light,' His inspiring and illuminating spirit 
went forth in one and the same form to all. But it was dif- 
ferently received, with different shades of apprehension as to 
the minor aspects of its teachings, owing to the different 
capacities of reception in different minds of different tribes 
and nations. It was, moreover, clothed in the artificial lan- 
guage of men, which is never adequate of itself to express the 
fullness and purity of spiritual truth; and was variously tinged 
with the peculiarities of the styles of different prophets, 
seers and scribes who committed it to writing. As time 
rolled on, it became also subject to insensible perversion at 
the hands of those, who, with a subtle and unconscious sel- 
fishness aspired to the dignity of personal and official rulers 
over the minds and consciences of men — thus assuming the 
viceregency of God as an earthly honor and setting up the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 347 

abomination of desolation in tiie holy place. Yet notwith- 
standing all these sources of perversion of the light there is 
not, at this day, one of the great forms of the world's religions 
— Brahminist, Buddhist, Parsee, Jewish, Mohammedan or 
Christian — that does not inculcate justice, kindness, charity, 
honesty, chastity, the reverence and love of God, and all those 
personal virtues which ennoble and adorn mankind; while 
there is not one of them that does not encourage the hope of 
an immortal life hereafter. In these basic and divine 
principles all these otherwise divergent religious developments 
have a common bond of union, even as the different branches of 
a tree are united in a common stem; and there is not one of 
them that has not produced fruit for the 'healing of the 
nations who have received it.' " 

Here ensued a pause of a few moments, during which the 
people said : 

"True, O Scribe, and your words are full of the spirit of 
charity and brotherly love. But must these same local dif- 
ferences in the forms of religion always continue? We would 
hear thee concerning the farther details of this matter." 

Then the Scribe continued: 

2. SPECIALTIES IN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS AND THEIR CAREERS 
OF USEFULNESS, LIFE AND DEATH. 

"The underlying and vital principles common to all of these 
religious systems may be considered as imperishable and un- 
changeable, and as necessarily claiming a large place in the 
foundation of the Universal Religion. Yet while this is true, 
perceive ye not that each one of the great systems, considered 
as to the peculiarity of its form, is only a specialty, adapted to 
the peculiarity of the genius, tastes and mental proclivities of 



348 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the nations and peoples who receive it; and that not one of 
them, by any means could, in its presently received form, ever 
become a universality ? Who would think of attempting to plant 
formal Mohammedanism, for instance, in England or America? 
or who would ever hope to succeed in making dogmatic 
Christianity, as at this day popularly received, the common 
religion of China? And yet, I will venture to say, there are 
some men in China who obey Christ better than some of the 
professedly Christian missionaries who are sent there to con- 
vert them, and some men in America who obey Confucius and 
Mohammed better than some professed devotees of these 
teachers respectively in China and Arabia. 

"I answer secondly, that each one of these great religious 
systems, being a specialty and not a universality as b'^fore 
stated, is therefore, as a form, necessarily of but temporal dura- 
tion^ and in the progress of all things must sooner or later give 
place to one that is more nearly universal than itself. Each 
one, as a humanly adapted form, is amenable to the cyclic 
law of birth, development, maturity, old age, decline and 
death, to be succeeded by a new and regenerated form, 
vitalized by renewed elements of inspiration, and adapted to 
the changed conditions and wants of mankind. Such cyclic 
religious evolutions have several notable exemplifications in 
the history of the past; as that which witnessed the birth of 
Judaism and Buddhism out of Brahminism; that which wit- 
nessed the birth of Christianity out of Judaism; and that of the 
rise of Mohammedism out of the effete systems of oriental 
idolatry. And it is the subject of prophecy, that out of the 
now closing grand Cycle of the Christian Church, one other, 
and actually universal religion, shall arise — typified by the 
angel in the vision of St. John, seen to 'fly in the midst of 
heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that 



THE END OF THE AGES. 349 

dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue 
and people. ' * 

" It can hardly be denied that the world has now arrived at a 
condition, intellectually, morally, socially and spiritually, in 
which its highest wants fail to be supplied by any or even all 
of the great forms in which the religious sentiment has been 
crystallized in the past. Nor can it be denied that in this 
'End of the Ages' or this closing up of the grand cycle of the 
human race, there is an almost universal yearning among the 
better minds of all nations, for the unfolding of some broader, 
deeper, higher and more certain Religious Light than any 
which we now find adapted to the common apprehensions of 
men, in any of the great systems of the past. For however 
grand and true these systems may be of themselves, I think it 
would not be difficult to concede that they have in the main 
finished their work and as distinctive forms lived out the 
periods of their special usefulness. The predicted period of 
the everlasting religion of all nations and kindreds and tongues 
and people has therefore evidently arrived; and the question. 
What are its basic principles! is that which forms the very subject 
of our present inquiry." 

3. THE RESOURCES OF WRITTEN REVELATION. 

Here was another pause during which the question came up 
and found utterance in many minds, " In formulating the basis 
of the universal religion can we safely depend upon any other 
sources of available light and knowledge than those contained 
in written revelation?" The Scribe answered as follows: 

"It must certainly be admitted that written revelation has 

*Rev. XIV. 6. 



35° THE END OF THE AGES. 

served purposes of the highest importance in the exaltation of 
individuals, societies, nations and the human race, making 
man acquainted with his God, his duty and his destiny. 

"It has first led the progress of nations and afterwards 
crystallized and conserved order, truth and good in social and 
national institutions. It has in cooperation with physical 
laws brought the world to its present status; and without its 
past influence, even the existing yearnings for more light would 
have remained undeveloped. Besides all this it undoubtedly, 
in many of its points, appeals to the sympathies of the human 
heart as nothing else can do, and contains mysteries of wisdom 
which mankind have as yet failed to apprehend, and which will 
form the themes of devout study and meditation throughout 
many future generations. 

" Yet it would be inexpedient to depend wholly, or even to 
any very great extent, upon the resources of written revelation 
for proof of the basic ideas of a religion proposed for the 
universal acceptance of mankind, both because quotations for 
this purpose from the sacred books of either of the religious 
divisions of the world would necessarily excite the jealousy and 
meet with the dissent of other religionists, and because this is 
a sceptical and intellectually exacting age, and multitudes would 
be satisfied with no proofs except those which may be found in 
the very nature of things as interpreted by science and philos- 
ophy. 

" Necessarily therefore, we shall be compelled to resort to the 
very fountains of knowledge from which these written revela- 
tions have drawn, and especially to that older, eternal, incor- 
ruptible and infallible revelation written by the finger of God 
in the works of nature. " 

At this point many voices simultaneously exclaim: "Alas! 
we dread all appeals to the book of nature, as that has 



THE END OF THE AGES. 35 1 

heretofore been the standard authority of those who oppose 
all religion and are known as infidels and atheists. 
" Surely you would not lead us in that direction?" 

4. ALL PARTS OF THE DIVINE SCHEME MUST BE MUTUALLY 

CONSISTENT. 

The scribe answered, "Calm your fears, my brethren. The 
teaching of the Divine Spirit through his works and his written 
word cannot be contradictory when both are properly inter- 
preted. But while it is a clearly evident fact that the opposers 
of religion are unable to understand the spirit and true import 
of written revelation, they have not as yet shown their ability 
to read and spiritually interpret one single chapter or even 
connected page of that book of nature to which they are so 
fond of appealing. And could they read it properly they 
would find in it the fixed and universal language, the universal 
revelation and the true commentary and confirmation of much, 
if not all, uncorrupt and properly written revelation; and 
their scepticism would vanish forever with the acceptance of 
both 'written and unwritten.'" 

It was noted that a few persons shook their heads as if in 
more or less doubtfulness; while the majority loudly and re- 
peatedly cried, '■'•We will appeal to the book of nature!'" And their 
voices were heard by people outside of the Council and were 
repeated and again and again — repeated far and wide and was 
heard by all men — and from every continent of the earth and 
from every island inhabited by civilized man, and from every 
city, village, and hamlet there were re-echoing voices: "The 
book of nature ; read for us the book of nature and break for us 
the seals, and teach us by what rule we may read it for our- 
selves, O gray-haired scribe !" 



352 THE END OF THE AGES. 

5. HOW TO READ THE BOOK OF NATURE. 

The scribe then continued: " Do you ask by what rule may 
the book of nature be read and interpreted ? The answer is 
conveyed in one word — by correspondences. A writing at 
your hands will explain to you the correspondences existing 
between the sevenfold subordinate systems, kingdoms, and dis- 
crete degrees in the united system of nature,* but we shall 
now deal with the more general and concrete aspect of this 
principle and lay it down as our basic axiom: 

' ' That the physical universe as a whole is in correspondence with 
the moral ajid spiritual imiverse as a whole, and the parts of one 
with the parts of the other, much in the same way as the 
human body and the human soul, are in correspondence with 
each other. 

" In developing afewof the more prominent lessons embraced 
in the compass of this grand theme I proceed as follows: 

I. THE LAW OF GRAVITATION, PHYSICAL AND MORAL. 

"The solar system (not to go beyond that at present) is a 
unit composed of innumerable correlated reciprocally interac- 
tive and harmonious parts, governed by fixed and eternal laws, 
and it is well known that these parts are held in consociation 
by a common center and force of gravitation. It is this force 
which keeps each planet to its appropriate orbit and establishes 
the nicest equilibrium of action and reaction throughout the en- 
tire complex system. It is this central power which, reaching 
out in every direction, over chasms of space millions and even 
billions of miles in extent, sweeps worlds and systems through 
their orbital courses with a velocity to which no mechanical 
motion in the human world will compare, and yet without the 



* See preceding pages of this wori< passim. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 353 

slightest noise or jar, and with periods so absolutely fixed as 
not to vary a minute in a thousand years. There is not a 
planet, satellite or asteroid, nor a comet, and not a mass of 
nebulous or meteoric matter, within the vast compass of the 
system, which is not amenable to this identical force, accord 
ing to its magnitude, density and distance; and each is poised 
in its orbit and regulated in its motions with a nicety of re- 
ciprocal relations which can be expressed only in the language 
of mathematics. 

" Now of all this there is necessarily a correspondence in the 
moral and spiritual universe^ if it so be that body and soul, mat- 
ter and spirit, are correspondents and complements of each 
other. There is, then, certainly a great Center of moral and 
spiritual^ as well as of a physical gravitation. If the material 
body of man, of the globe he stands on, and the whole system 
of mundane spheres consociated therewith is thus subjected to 
the attraction of a great physical center, so is man's soul, and 
so are all human souls and spirits when in their normal rela- 
tions, subject to some grand, sublime, invisible and eternal 
Center of spiritual attraction, the tendency of which is to pro- 
gressively draw all souls to and unite them in Himself. 
Through his body man is related to the former of these cen- 
ters; through his spirit he is related to the latter; and it is to 
these opposite yet corresponding forces of gravitation that an 
occult allusion is made by a wise man of old saying, that 'the 
body shall return to the dust as it was, and the spirit shall re- 
turn to God who gave it.' 

" Moreover, if the universal subjection of physical bodies to 
a common center of physical gravitation is the condition and 
source of all the unity, harmony and order there is in the 
physical universe, so the clear recognition by mankind of a 
common center of spiritual gravitation, with a strict obedience 

23 



354 THE END OF THE AGES. 

thereto, is a necessary condition of that more perfect union, 
peace and harmony which will correspond to the order and 
harmony of the planetary and stellar universe, and realize all 
the old predictions concerning the latter day glory of the 
human race. For with such recognition, and such binding 
allegiance to a common central and spiritual Sun, each nation 
of the earth, each great branch of the human family, each con- 
sociation of mankind of whatever description, and even each 
individual, will spontaneously assume its appropriate orbit, 
will execute its complex gyres and revolutions, will pass regu- 
larly through its perihelion and aphelion points, its conjunc- 
tions and oppositions with other bodies, its subordinate and 
compensating interactions, retardations and accelerations, 
and will pass regularly through its alternating seasons of 
national, social, economic and spiritual, summer and winter, 
day and night, activity and repose — all useful in their respec- 
tive places and seasons — and will perform all those inter- 
changing and reciprocal functions needed for the individual 
and universal good. 

II. HEAT AND LIGHT LOVE AND WISDOM. 

"From the same great central sun of the cosmical system, 
thus far considered only as the center of common gravitation, 
flows forth heat and light to be distributed upon the planets and 
satellites according to their several needs, to give fertility and 
beauty to all. Without this supply of heat and light, planets 
would be enveloped in the icy mantles of eternal winter, and 
would roll in a sea of unchanging and everlasting darkness — bar- 
ren, dead and useless. With this supply they are the homes of 
green forests and fields, of birds, flowers and fruits, and of 
races of sentient, intelligent and immortal beings. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 355 

" And so also from the great Spiritual Sun of the inner and 
invisible universe, flows spiritual heat which is Love^ and spirit- 
ual light which is Wisdom. By the former man is exalted, 
purified, spiritualized, and bound to his fellow man with ties of 
fraternal sympathy, and his whole interior nature is made 
beautiful and fragrant with heavenly affections. By the other 
he is guided into all truth and all useful actions, to bless him- 
self and his fellow beings, and to honor and glorify the infinite 
Source of all blessings; and by receiving the two, man is 
transfigured into the image of his Maker, and nations are de- 
veloped into the form, ruled by the laws and brought into the 
order and peace of heaven. 

" Now this great center of spiritual gravitation and this great 
source of spiritual heat which is Love, and of spiritual Light 
which is Wisdom, is that Infinite, Eternal, Creative, Over-rul- 
ing and Paternal Spirit who, in different languages, and by 
different nations has been designated by the different names 
of Brahma, Kneph, Ormuzd, Jehovah, Adonai, Allah, Theos, 
Deus, Gott and God. 

"That aspiration of love, of reverence, of devotion and that 
yearning desire to be nearer to Him, to be more like Him, 
and to be absorbed more and more into His spirit which, as an 
all controlling moral gravitation, binds and rebinds human souls 
to Him, is what we call 'Religion.'* That beautifying, life- 
giving love which sensibly flows into the truly religious soul 
like a baptism of fire from a great spiritual sun, is the exceed- 
ingly great and inexpressible reward of a truly religious life; 
and that stable equipoise of the affections and rational faculties, 
and that clear and grand perception of Truth in all its rela- 
tions, which, as true Wisdom, flows into the receptive mind by 
inspiration from this great central source of all Wisdom, is 



* From religo, religere, to re-bind or re-tie. 



356 THE END OF THE AGES. 

that which dignifies, conserves and propagates the true reli- 
gious sentiment, and so directs its practical operations as to 
make it a blessing and a joy to all and forever. 

"These may be regarded as the broadest, most general and 
most absolutely self-evident principles of the Universal Religion 
that are set forth in the Great Book of Nature. On these 
principles all nations of the earth can, and we confidently 
predict will, agree; and by the use of the key thus furnished 
to the correct reading of this 'elder scripture,' this great 
apocalypse may, even without farther suggestions from us, be 
unraveled in its still higher and more specifically practical 
complications." 

The Speaker here took his seat as if intending these last 
words as the conclusion of his discourse. But the people 
said : 

"Kind Sir, we have been edified and instructed by your 
novel and convincing mode of presenting the truth. Be kind 
enough to continue your discourse in the exposition of some 
of the particular points which it would seem must be involved 
in your general theme; and among other things, please unfold 
to us more clearly the teachings of this great astronomical 
Book, concerning the nature and grounds of Moral Responsi- 
bility between man and man and nation and nation." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

BASIC OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION, 

Part II. 

SPECIAL DOCTRINES AND MORAL LESSONS. 

III. Moral responsibility taught by planetary laws; IV. Lessons of subor- 
dinate centers and orbits — Principalities, powers etc. ; Parents and chil- 
dren; V. Lessons of diversities of degrees, and progress; VI. Lessons 
of comets; VII. Extra orbital motions; VIII. Eclipses, Lenses, Re- 
flectors — Priests, Pastors and Teachers; IX. Consequences of non-recog- 
nition of a common center of gravity; Atheism uncenters and disinte- 
grates; Universal non-religion would be universal social chaos. 

III. MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. 

TN answer to this request of the assembled people, the 
-*- speaker proceeded as follows: 

"It is my thought, venerable brothers, that a true lesson 
concerning Moral Responsibility may be read from the astro- 
nomical Book in this wise: Each planet is dependent for its 
very existence, its stability of position and all that pertains to 
it as a desirable mundane form, upon the central sun which 
holds it in gravitative allegiance, and supplies it with heat 
and light. If these binding relations and dependencies should 
be dissolved, the planet would instantly be reduced to a vir- 
tual nonentity. But the same central body which establishes and 
holds these relations with one planet, establishes and 
holds them with all. This fact necessitates correlations between 



358 THE END OF THE AGES. 

all the secondary and dependent bodies, and hence subordinate 
and mutual dependencies between them, of such nature as must 
be regulated by a common law prescribing to each those posi- 
tions, courses and motions that may not be detrimental to 
the others. If, for example, a single planet or comet, ceasing 
to recognize allegiance to this central power, should break 
loose from its orbit and dash off in tangental courses through 
the orbits of its fellows, the unity of the system would be 
broken, the law of universal harmony would be infringed, and 
conflict and disorder would spread throughout the whole vast 
realm of creation. There is subsisting in the relations of 
these bodies, therefore, that which corresponds to moi-al obli- 
gation^ whereby the preservation of order, justice and har- 
mony is enjoined and whereby the violation of these principles 
is made to suffer corrective consequences. 

" Looking for the correspondences of these things in the 
moral and spiritual realm, we find that each man, and each 
society or national organization that embraces the principles 
of a man expanded to a larger scale, is by the peculiarities of 
his or its natural constitution and adaptations, set to a spe- 
cific circle of movements which answers to a planetary orbit. In 
this circle or orbit, therefore, he is, by the obligation of nat- 
ural law, enjoined to move in the regular order, and in har- 
mony with the normal movements of all his fellows. If, as was 
said of the planet or comet, any one of these should break 
loose from his appropriate orbit and dash off in tangental 
courses through the orbits of others, perturbations would en- 
sue which would necessarily affect, to a greater or less extent, 
the normal movements and conditions of others, and inflict in- 
justice upon all. The commission of any crime or injustice, 
however great or small, by any individual association or nation, 
is a proof that the perpetrator is to that extent out of his or 



THE END OF THE AGES. 359 

its appropriate moral orbit, and by that displacement, pertur- 
bations are introduced into the moral universe which displace 
all others in some minute or greater degree. And thus it may 
be truly asserted, that if one sins, in whatever way, or how- 
ever secretly, he sins in some degree against the whole moral 
universe. 

" Now, as the great central sun of the cosmical system impera- 
tively prescribes order and harmony in the positions and move- 
ments of his family of planets, so the great Spiritual Sun and 
impartial Father of mankind requires the observance of order 
and the practice of justice among all his children, and gives 
them the right to demand the same of each other. And such 
appears to be the true philosophy of moral obligation and 
accountability as read by the glossary of correspondences, 
from the Book of Nature." 

At this point there was an expression of delight upon many 
countenances, and the people said: 

"These are the true foundation principles of all human so- 
ciety. Let them be acknowledged and obeyed, and stability, 
order and justice are assured. But now suffer us, O venera- 
ble teacher, to ask your explanation of the correspondences of 
the many subordinate centers of gravitation, such as those of 
satellites, and perhaps smaller and meteoric bodies, which 
move around the planet, while the planet, bearing them along 
with it, moves around the sun ? " 

And the teacher responded: 

IV, LESSONS OF SUBORDINATE CENTERS AND ORBITS. 

"Before answering the question, let us endeavor to appre- 
hend the extent of this principle of superior and subordinate 
centers and orbits. Let it be observed, then, that the great 



36o- THE END OF THE AGES. 

sun of our solar system, according to mathematical deductions 
from certain motions among the stars, is revolving with all his 
retinue of planets and satellites, around some still more grand 
and interior sun. And so, prolonging the thought in the same 
direction, it may be conceived that even that sun, with all the 
stars of the galaxy, each itself being a sun with surrounding 
planets and satellities, is silently wending its sublime course 
around a still higher, grander and more interior Center; — and 
so the thoughts may go onward to centers still higher until 
the mind is lost in the depths of infinitude. 

" It appears, then, that each attracting and attracted body, 
however great or small, is a type of all others; and whatever 
may be predicted of the offices of one, may, in some sense, be . 
predicted of the ofifices of all the others, but on either a 
higher or lower plane, as the case may be. 

"And, if it is a law that the sun should obey the more inte- 
rior suns, so it is the same law that the planets should obey the 
suns, and that satellites should obey the planets, and that 
even the supposed invisible meteoric masses that float through 
space should obey the satellites, and also even the larger me- 
teors that have the power to attract them; and finally, that 
every mass or particle of matter owes some degree of gravita- 
tive allegiance to every superior mass or particle. 

"The correspondential lesson of all this is expressed in an 
old book (which, indeed, is made up of excerpts and transla- 
tions of the still older and larger Book of Nature) in the say- 
ing that God, the great spiritual sun, has appointed principal- 
ities, powers, mights and dominions in the heavens and in 
the earth; that he has given to mankind apostles and prophets 
and evangelists and pastors and teachers — all as diminutive 
types of Himself; that every soul should be subject to the 
higher powers, for there is no power but of God; that the 



THE END OF THE AGES. 361 

powers that be are ordained of God; that whosoever, there- 
fore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, 
and whosoever rejecteth the superior wisdom rejecteth 
the wisdom of God. It is also a manifest correspondence 
of these astronomical facts, that pupils are teachers of 
pupils in still lower degrees, and teachers are pupils of teach- 
ers in still higher degrees, from the lowest neophyte up 
through the realms of angels and archangels and still onward 
through the infinite depths of the Wisdom of God, — all of 
which, however, is infinitely generalized and mystically in- 
volved in the lowest and minutest form of a perfect divine type 
— -just as a universe is typified by a molecule, or a world by an 
atom. 

" Moreover, these principalities, powers, mights, dominions, 
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, while 
children of a higher parentage, are fathers and mothers of the 
weaker ones placed in their charge. These it is their office to 
nourish in all wisdom and goodness, and to lead forward into 
realms of divine light and love as they are led, until in the final 
convergence of all into the infinite ocean of Divine Love and 
Wisdom, each can say, ' Here am I, Lord, and the children 
whom Thou hast given me.' 

" There is an aspect of this natural symbolism that conveys 
an important lesson of another kind : As each particle and mass 
of matter is gravitatively loyal to a superior particle or mass 
until it can find a superior source of attraction and as each 
satellite, planet and sun yields allegiance to its given center of 
motion for want of a still superior source of direct attraction ; 
so in the moral world, each should loyally cleave to the form 
of government, creed or faith under which he was born, until 
he can find a better one; but on the other hand, as in the physical, 
so in the moral world, each should be open and obedient to 



362 THE END OF THE AGES. 

any higher light and influence that may at any time come to 
him, that thus leaving the first crude principles of doctrine, he 
may 'go on unto perfection.' Therefore let Brahminists, 
Buddhists, Parsees, Mohammedans, Christians, and among the 
latter. Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, Unitari- 
ans, Universalists, remain loyal to the faith in which they have 
been taught, consenting that their neighbors should do the 
same, until they can see farther; but let no one imagine that he 
is loyal either to truth, humanity or God, so long as he bars the 
gates of his mind against the floods of the infinitude of Divine 
Wisdom which lie beyond, through whatever channels or by 
whatever instrumentalities these may come to him. 

V. LESSON OF DIVERSITIES OF DEGREES AND PROGRESS. 

" Let it now be observed that all these varietiesof conditions, 
forms, movements and operations in the cosmical system, 
great and small, are necessary to make up a universe, which, 
in process of Creation, rises from the lowest and crudest to 
the highest and most perfect forms. At first the planets and 
even suns were 'without form and void.' Born out of the 
preexisting masses of floating nebulae and resulting from the 
gradual fluxion of inchoate matter upon gravitating centers, 
earth, water and air must, for inconceivable periods, have re- 
mained undistinguishable. Emerging at length, from these 
chaotic conditions, another incalculable period of transition 
ensued, during which the planet became fitted for the habita- 
tion of man. The boundless exuberance of divine love, wis- 
dom and energy, translating themselves into various formative 
mundane forces, did not suffer these intermediate conditions 
to go to waste, but peopled the earth with such low and simple 
animal forms as then could alone exist. Necessarily it was 



THE END OF THE AGES. 363 

the nature of these to prey upon each other and to wage 
mutual war for the possession of that which was needful to 
each — thus introducing that struggle for existence which ad- 
mitted only of the triumph and survival of the strongest and 
most worthy; and by that means keeping the current of prog- 
ress flowing perpetually onward to more and still more worthy 
forms, crowned at length by the first crude specimens of man- 
hood. 

"Thence, upon the scale of humanity this same line of prog- 
ress and under the same law, necessarily had to be repeated. 
The first forms of men, with small retreating brains, progna- 
thous jaws and long arms, and feeding upon nuts and roots 
and the flesh of their human enemies and of such small animals 
as they were able to kill by the aid of clubs and stones, and 
subsequently of that most useful of all primeval inventions, the 
bow and arrow, these, our prehistoric ancestors, must, judging 
from their remains still found, have dwelt upon the earth not 
less than, a hundred thousand years before the first dawn of 
civilization. 

"Saurians, dragons, serpents, wolves, hyenas, cavebears, an- 
thropoid apes, simioid men, troglodites, murdering cannibals, 
wandering nomads and warring barbarian tribes are but the lower 
and necessary roundsin the ladder by ^\i\Q\\progress\i2i% ascended 
to its present altitude ; even as we in our turn are also rounds in 
the same ladder, leading to future degrees in this world or 
some other, as much higher than we, as we are now higher 
than they. These anterior and inferior forms and degrees 
came in their appropriate time and have served their useful 
purposes; and if they have not yet all departed from us, the 
best we can do with them is to keep the wolves and hyenas 
out of the sheep-folds, and confined to the remote forests 
where they can do no mischief, and to surround the remaining 



364 THE END OF THE AGES. 

types of savage human life — thieves, robbers, murderers and 
such like — with the restraints of wise, humane and stringently 
enforced laws which will render them powerless for harm, and 
at the same time subject them to those educating, moralizing 
and spiritualizing influences that will tend to develop the im- 
mortal germs of divinity that still lie hidden somewhere in the 
dark recesses of their natures. 

"Thus may we see that all are, in some sense, and for a 
time, necessary parts of the grand machinery of God's uni- 
versal providence and government; and thus may we look 
religiously with patience and with hope, even upon the worst 
and lowest devils, considering all evils as but incidental and 
temporary deflection from the divine rays by the sluggishness 
of the gross matter with which the Deity builds the Universe, 
and discerning through all the oneness of purpose and design, 

which is UNIVERSAL GOOD. 

VI. LESSON OF COMETS. 

"Comets are bodies composed of loosely aggregated and 
mostly nebulous materials, unformed, '■ tinprogressed' as some 
would say, and moving usually in extremely elliptical orbits. 
For a few days, while passing its perihelion point, the comet 
will bathe and glow in the immediate atmosphere of the sun. 
After clothing itself with the heat and light of the solar sub- 
stance, and expanding itself to a greatness which we may 
imagine it vainly conceives to be its own, it dashes off again, 
with great velocity, into space, and in a few weeks or months 
it is beyond the space-penetrating power of the largest tele- 
scopes. It is gone, and whither, O whither ? Plunged into 
the boundless depths of dark, cold ether! A decade elapses, or 
perhaps a century, five hundred, a thousand, two thousand or 



THE END OF THE AGES. 365 

even three thousand years, as in some cases, and all have for- 
gotten the wanderer; when an astronomer, with telescope 
casually directed to a certain point in the heavens, discerns a 
faintly perceptible whitish haze. It approaches, and becomes 
more visible, and the curves of its motion is observed, and the 
elements of its orbit are calculated; and lo! it is that same 
wanderer, thought to be lost, now cold and pale, slowly and 
tremulously wending its way back to that same parental foun- 
tain of light and heat upon which it had heedlessly turned its 
back long years or even ages before. 

" Translated by the rule of correspondences, this proves to 
be the identical story of that hale, ruddy and self-confident 
youth who demanded of his father the portion of goods that 
fell to him by inheritance. With these he took his journey 
into a far country, and spent his substance in riotous living; 
and when he had reduced himself to the extremity of want and 
despair, he began to soliloquize, 'How many servants are in 
my father's house who have bread enough and to spare and 
I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and 
say, Father I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and 
am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of 
thy hired servants.' 

" And the Divine Father who is here represented saw the 
wanderer coming when afar off, and ran out to meet him, and 
welcomed him home again to his mansion with all its heavenly 
riches; and the angels rejoiced and folded their loving arms 
around him and said, ' O brother, precious, long lost brother, 
welcome ! welcome home again ! 

"That great, infinite Spirit whom the human race will yet 
concur in calling ' Father, ' ejects none of his children from 
his paternal mansion, casts no man into hell, but leaves each 
in the moral liberty to choose for himself either heaven or 



366 THE END OF THE AGES. 

hell, and to go and return at their own option, leaving His 
doors open to eternity for the reception of such dilatory lag- 
gards as may still hesitate to renounce their own disorderly 
and miserable ways and humbly conform to the rules of the 
divine household." 

And as the speaker uttered these last words, the counte- 
nances of the hearers grew brighter, and in the pause of the 
discourse they spoke to each other in subdued voices and 
said: 

"So, then, indeed. He is the impartial Father of all — of 
Brahminist and Jew; of Parsee and Mohammedan; of Buddhist 
and Christian; of Catholic and Protestant! And so, then, 
we are all brethren, even the poor prodigal — all brethren. Say 
on, worthy teacher; we are delighted with your words." 

And the speaker, opening another theme, said : 

VII. EXTRA ORBITAL MOTIONS. 

" In the divine constitution of the physical universe, where 
there are no counter volitions, and all things are in mechani- 
cal subjection to forces accurately apportioned and directed 
for their government, positions and movements in assigned or- 
bits of course observe the fixedness and accuracy of mathe- 
matics. But in the immature degrees of the moral creation, 
where free volitions of finite intelligences necessarily play a 
part, position and movements are not always normal and or- 
derly, though we do not now say that under the omnipotent 
and eternal overruling of the divine moral forces, the aberra- 
tions are not all destined to be ultimately corrected. Thus, 
he who does not, without prejudice, receive new truths when 
proved to be such, and he who from prejudice, bigotry and 
willful blindness cleaves to old creeds when they are clearly 



THE END OF THE AGES. 367 

shown to be erroneous; or he who, knowing the truth, refuses 
or neglects to obey its moral mandates, under the predominat- 
ing desire to follow some imagination or lust of his own, is out 
of his appropriate moral orbit, and is compounding and mixing, 
rays of decomposed light with streaks of darkness, and institut- 
ing factitious gravitating forces to suit his own whims or lusts, 
which are quite different from the orderly forces that would 
control him in his normal and divinely appointed orbit. 

"In addition to this, let it be also remembered, that as each 
planet and satellite has its own appropriate orbit, suited alone 
to its own nature, in which alone its own proper motions and of- 
fices can be performed^so each person has his own appropriate 
mora/ orhit, which differs in some respects from all others; and 
there, and there alone, he can perform his proper uses in har- 
mony with all others. Propagandists of the truth, therefore, 
should be reminded that in their labors for the ge?zera/ unity of 
the faith they should carefully abstain from all efforts to per- 
suade or force others unnaturally, into t/ieir own specific lines 
and peculiarities of mental and moral action, seeing that in so 
doing they would virtually destroy them. 

VIII. ECLIPSES, LENSES, REFLECTORS, PRIESTS, PASTORS AND 

TEACHERS. 

"An eclipse of the sun is when a satellite comes between 
the primary planet and the sun, intercepting the light of the 
latter; an eclipse of the moon or other satellite is when the 
primary planet comes between the satellite and the sun, cutting 
off the light of the sun from the satellite. The office of the 
satellite (as a merely incidental utilization, it may be admitted) 
is to receive the direct rays of the sun and reflect them back 
upon a 7iight side of the primary planet. 



368 THE END OF THE AGES. 

''The correspondential lesson relates to the human lights 
and spiritual leaders of mankind. It imports that he is a 
legitimate priest and pastor who, in self-abnegation, holds him- 
self as a colorless atidtransparetit lens to focalize the rays of divine 
love and wisdom, upon cold, dark souls, thence calmly trust- 
ing to God for the vivifying and regenerating results. He is 
a legitimate teacher, who, as a moon, casts the reflected light 
of faith upon the dark places of the human soul, without 
absorbing, decomposing or in any way changing its rays in the 
impure atmosphere of his own selfhood. But if either of these 
presumptuously assumes the place and affects to exercise the 
authority of that God of whom, at most, he is but a mere mes- 
senger and minister, he by this act throws himself between 
man and his God, and becomes an eclipse upon the Divine Sun, 
obstructing rather than giving efficacy to its rays, and 
casts shadows of darkness rather than beams of light upon 
human souls. 

IX. CONSEQUENCES OF THE NON-RECOGNITION OF A COMMON 
CENTER OF GRAVITY. 

" In a maturely developed solar system, such as our own, the 
non-recognition, by any of , the planetary bodies, of a common 
center of gravitation, would be impossible. If there could be 
such a phenomenon as a planet severing the cords of connec- 
tion which bind it to the sun, the disorder in the system which 
would ensue might be readily imagined. Its attractions would 
then be only upon its own center, involving a selfish application 
of force, the tendency of which, in enlargement, would be to 
usurp the control of all things without as well as within — thus 
clashing with a universality of dissentients, exhausting its 
limited power in disseminating cosmic war and disorder, and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 369 

finally succumbing as the weaker power and becoming extinct. 

" In the moral world, which is the world of human passions 
and volitions often misdirected, there does sometimes occur 
the strange and unnatural phenomenon of non-recognition and 
utter denial of a Great Common Center of moral gravitation. 
There are persons who deny the existence of a God, and 
boldly proclaim their ability to manage the affairs of their 
bodies and souls (if they have souls) without Him; and re- 
ligion with its binding and regulating laws is by them regarded 
as mere ignorant and tyrannical superstitution. 

' ' During times of social and spiritual transition, like the pres- 
ent, minds of this class are usually multiplied and are apt to 
make themselves conspicuous as agitators; and Atheism, or 
' Nihilism' (nothingism) as it is sometimes called, is exten- 
sively the creed, or rather non-creed, of the advocates of 
various schemes of Socialism and Communism.* But it is im- 
possible that these persons can have any dominating attrac- 
tions higher than themselves; any orbits larger than their own 
selfish interests and pleasures; any aspirations which reach 
beyond the sphere of lust. They are like bodies of cosmic 
matter moving through the siderial spaces without controlling 
centers, without fixed courses, now dashing at one, and now at 
another of their planetary companions into whose sphere of 
attraction they may chance to come — a perpetual menace to the 
established order of things — and finally plunging into the dark- 
ness of the fathomless spaces, to be seen no more. A sacred 
writer has fittingly characterized these persons as 'wandering 
stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.' 

"Just for the very reason that Atheists have no great center 



* Nobilling, the communist and would be regicide, when arrested for firing- 
his bullets at the Emperor William, is reported to have said: "Yes, I did it and 
meant to liill him. We have got rid of God and have no need of kings." 

24 



37° THE END OF THE AGES. 

of moral gravitation in common with others, and hence no 
open course of moral movement whose aim is above self, it 
logically follows that their influence in society must always be 
subversive, disintegrating, tending to unsettle all things and 
to settle nothing. If they ever band together, it is always 
more to subvert and destroy than it is to build; and if they 
should succeed in accomplishing the destruction of those insti- 
tutions of society against which they unite in a common war- 
fare under the impulse of a common hate, their natural tend- 
ency would be to dissolve again into chaotic individualism, or to 
battle with each other until the strong should have subjugated 
the weak. For, having no common and central tie of Father- 
hood, how could they have any common bund of Brotherhood? 
"The self-evident lesson of all this, reduced to few words is — 
Universal non-religion would be compatible alone with univer- 
sal moral and social chaos — while on the other hand, that uni- 
versal order and harmony of the human race, and that recipro- 
cating and compensating interaction of the parts of the same 
which may find their type in the order and economy of cosmical 
system, can alone be brought about by the universal vitaliza- 
tion of the human race by the power and life of a Universal 
Religion. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

BASIC OUTLINES OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 

Part III. 

SOME HIGHER MYSTERIES DISCLOSED. 

The speaker urged to still continue his discourse; X. Concerning the Eternal 
Creative^ Generative and Regenerative Logos, Word or Wisdom; Nebular 
theory; Sevenfold order of Creation; XI. Divine embodiments in mat- 
ter in the process of creation; Eternal Dualism; Origin of Evil; Ground 
of Correspondences; A pause, and canvass of the audience; The speaker 
urged still to continue; XII. Divine Incarnation or the Logos made flesh; 
Characteristics and titles of the Divine Man; XIII. Concerning Vicarious 
Atonement; True and false views of this doctrine; XIV. Salvation, and 
in what does it consist ? Prejudice aroused, and small parties secede from 
the council; Criticisms and the gray-haired Scribe's answer; He con- 
tinues; XV. Prayer; XVI. Individual and social worship; XVII. The 
Universal Hierarchy- — Conclusion of the gray-haired Scribe's discourse.' 
Conclusion of the book. 

\ T the close of these sentences there was another pause, 
^ *- during which the people said: 

" Worthy Sage, you have taught us wisely, and you have 
comforted us and made us better men. Your sentences are 
logical, your positions are self-evident, and your doctrines are 
morally sound; and if there is the slightest dissent in all this 
vast assembly from any of your teachings, it cannot relate to 
any point that is essential. We verily believe that to this ex- 
tent you have brought to our view the underlying principles of 
the UNIVERSAL religion; but we would learn more. Tell us. 



372 THE END OF THE AGES. 

we beseech you, something farther and more definite about the 
connection between the universe and the Divine Spirit, and 
explain to us more clearly the ultimate basis upon which rests 
the correspondences of which you speak, between the two." 

And the gray-haired Scribe answered: 

"In order to properly respond to your wishes, worthy 
brothers, I shall find it necessary to invoke the resources of a 
branch of philosophy at once more sublime and more abstruse 
than any I have yet opened to you, and the proper understand- 
ing of which will be essential, or even possible, only to the 
learjied — the teachers of mankind, such as yourselves here 
assembled are to be. I will however, lay before you the 
following thoughts, which all well organized and properly 
developed minds may understand and appreciate if they will. 

X. CONCERNING THE ETERNAL CREATIVE, GENERATIVE AND 
REGENERATIVE LOGOS, WORD OR WISDOM. 

"By analyzing our thesis thus far proclaimed, brothers, you 
will perceive that it rests upon the axiom, That there is an Tn- 
finite and Eternal God, and an infinite and eternal something that is 
NOT God; that these two exist in antithetical and complemen- 
tary relations to each other, as active and passive, positive and 
negative, formative and plastic, masculine and feminine, spirit 
and matter; and that this is the basis of the corresponding 
dualisms thence proceeding through all nature. 

"While we allow that proposition to rest where it is for the 
present, I now invite you to lift up your eyes to the noctur- 
nal heavens, glowing with innumerable stars and galaxies of 
different distances and magnitudes, some of which are so re- 
mote that many thousand years are consumed in the passage 
of a ray of light from them to our earth. These stars and 
galaxies, when maturely formed, are known to be suns and 



THE END OF THE AGES. 373 

clusters of suns, some of which doubtless are surrounded by 
families of planets like those surrounding our own sun. Ap- 
plying the powerful telescope to the mysterious intricacies of 
these celestial spaces, cosmical bodies are found in all stages 
of the process of formation, from gaseous inception to, solidi- 
fied completeness — thus with the aid of certain spectroscopic 
tests, affording such ocular proof of the Nebiclar Theory of 
Creation that few cosmologists at this day have any remaining 
doubt of its truthfulness. 

"These several stages of creation, from first to last, may be 
traced rationally and by observed data, as follows: 

" I. Chaos. Antedating all forms of which sensuous concep- 
tion can take cognizance, the mind naturally conceives of a 
pleroma of diffused atoms, yet without perceptible gravitative 
motions or chemical affinities, and with no distinct lines of 
segregating divisions — crude and seemingly purposeless. 

"2. Crude Forms. By shrinkage these boundless fields 
of vapor crack up into masses of immeasurable magnitude and 
indefinite angular shapes, with vast and gradually widening 
chasms of space between them, void of everything except the 
eternal ether.* 

" 3. NucLEATioN. These masses next develop each dis- 
tinct nuclei or gravitating centers, superior and subordinate, 
one or many, according to their magnitudes and the regulari- 
ties or irregularities of their original shapes. 

"4. SoLARizATiON. Thcsc masscs ucxt bccomc galaxies, 
the larger of them with innumerable nebulous suns, each ex- 
tending its gaseous mass to the remotest extreme of the terri- 
tory subsequently to be occupied by the planets into which 
these gases are to be condensed. 



* The cleavage of rocks in situ and the checkered shrinkage of oily sub- 
stances floating on the surface of colored water, illustrate this principle. 



374 THE END OF THE AGES. 

"5. Annulation. The next Stage is that of the formation ■ 
of nebulous rings and belts around these suns, from the mate- 
rials of their gaseous envelopes, similar to the rings of Saturn 
— these rings moving in gyres around their solar centers. 

"6. Planetization. The next process is the breaking of 
these rings and the transformation of each into a spheroidal 
nery mass — which, assuming an orbit round its central sun, 
becomes the inception of a planet. 

'•'7. Geogeny. By cooling the condensation of vapor, the 
formation of seas, atmosphere and dry land, and by passing 
through all the successive stages of geological formation, the 
planet, at length, becomes fitted as a habitation for immortal 
intelligences who are capable, in some degree, of understand- 
ing all these sublime processes which rendered possible his in- 
troduction into being, and capable also of recognizing some- 
thing of the wisdom and goodness of that Almighty Mind who 
planned and executed this whole stupendous work. 

" Anteceding the very first of these stages in the genesis of 
the universe, we have already found matter and spirit or the 
active and passive principles as the dual and Eternal Factors 
necessary to the production of the grand result. Without 
spirit, matter could not have become impregnated, but would 
forever have remained motionless and dead. Without matter 
as the static substance out of which to build the universe, the 
latter could never have been constructed; for it would violate 
the laws of thought to say that even omnipotence can make 
something out of nothing. It was infinite spirit, therefore, in 
which, from eternity to eternity resides all power, that trans- 
lated itself into all the forces which successively impregnated 
previously forceless matter, and originated the complex mo- 
tions, aggregations, dilations, contractions and circulations, 
which, passing upwards through the seven consecutive cosmic 



THE END OF THE AGES. 375 

degrees, just now enumerated, brought the system to a state 
of relative completeness. 

" Translated into the language of man, therefore, the reading 
of this grand revelation of generative mystery seems to be: 

" ' In the beginning was the Word {Logos or divine genera- 
tive and regenerative Wisdom) and the Word was with God 
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with 
God. All things were made by Him (the Word or Logos) and 
without Him was not anything made that was made.' 

XI. DIVINE EMBODIMENTS IN MATTER IN THE PROCESS OF 

CREATION. 

"Starting from the axiom of the Eternal Dualism of the dis- 
tinctive principles, matter and spirit, the modus of this pan- 
genesis, somewhat improperly called ' Creation,' is plainly that 
of a perpetual and eternal effort Ofi the part of Divine Spirit, by 
His Logos or generative and regenerative Wisdom, to embody 
himself in matter. In this process, the beginning of all be- 
ginnings must necessarily be at the lowest point of the lowest 
series; thence proceeding by regular gradations or successions 
of degrees until that series is complete; thence making that 
series, in turn, the relatively chaotic basis of another genesis; 
thence proceeding in like manner to another and another, until 
the whole series of the 'generations of heaven and earth' i-s 
complete. We have, then, as the most comprehensive of all 
Trinities, matter, spirit and universe, the latter being the prod- 
uct and participant of both the former. 

We have called this process in its generals and particulars, 
a process oi generation rather than of creation, because the word 
' creation ' by usage has acquired a meaning in some respects 
misleading to the mind in search of a sound philosophy on this 



376 THE END OF THE AGES. 

subject. Now the process of generation is that of the infusion 
of vital and formative forces into non-vital or relatively non- 
vital and formless materials, and the formation of the same 
into tissues, organs and a body in its totality, in which the 
generating spirit can dwell in such degree as the degree 
or plane of the body by correspondence renders possible. 
Thus in the astronomical universe as a whole and in each of 
its complete typical parts, down even to the little tiny plant or 
flower, the Divine Generative Spirit has a vital and potential 
embodiment, in precise correspondence with the plane or 
degree of the organism or of its included and corresponding 
suborganisms; and all the convertible forms of force active in 
any cosmic or other organism — thermal, gravitative, electric, 
magnetic, chemical or nervous — are outflows and tnodifications of 
the one original, infinite spiritual force which is divine power. 
This force- or power flowing into, building up, and afterwards 
residing in the universal forms of nature makes the words of 
the poet true; 

' All are but parts of a stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul.' 

" But not in any pantheistic sense is this true, as some have 
understood it; for it is to be remembered that the eternal dis- 
tinction between matter and spirit is preserved throughout 
this scheme, and that matter is not spirit nor spirit matter; 
that the body is not the soul nor the soul the body; hence that 
the universe is not God, nor is God the universe — any more 
than the house is the man who builds it and lives in it or the 
man the house. And in this great universal Body of God every 
sun is as it were a ganglion; every system and galaxy is as a 
nervous plexus; every tree, plant and flower existing upon the 
surface of the innumerable earths in the universe is as a vital 
molecule or blood corpuscle; while through the whole infinitude 



THE END OF THE AGES. 377 

of parts of the whole infinite mass are diffused an infinitude of 
interblending cords and currents of sympathy which in the to- 
tality of pulsating harmonies and interchanging action, give 
forth the ideal 'music of the spheres.' And this sublime music 
admits of no jar nor discord except at points where the genera- 
tive process eternally going on encounters the yet equal or over- 
balancing reaction of dead and static matter, and hence where 
the conquest of divine order over chaos is as yet incomplete.* 

"The working of the same Divine Spirit by the same fixed 
laws of the series, in and through each of these systems of 
creation (or rather generation) ^ and through all their objective 
finalities in the human world — such as the human physical 
and mental constitution, human society, the cycles of history, 
etc. — lays the basis, establishes the absolute necessity, and gives 
the exposition, of that law of Correspondences which we have 
seen runs through the whole universe, making all the parts of 
the same, the types, the echoes, and the infallible exponents of 
each other. 

" Thus is God embodied in the Universe, and manifests Him- 
self in all cosmic and vital movements in the grandest and in 
the most minute forms of matter, and thus may we commune 
with Him in all forms and degrees of the system of nature, 
from the most ponderous orb that rolls in ether to the modest 
little violet that hides its blushes under the herbage at our 
feet. 

" These axioms, brothers, 1 regard as exceedinglyimportant 
in their bearings upon the whole circle of possible human 



*In just this point lies the true philosophy of the origin of all evil, physical 
and moral — a question which has baffled metaphysicians from time immemorial 
and which never can be rationally solved without admitting as the basis of our 
reasoning, an Eternal Dualism of Matter and Spirit, out of which the organized 
universe is gradually and progressively born as a third term. 



378 THE END OF THE AGES. 

thoughts, affections and experiences, and this sense of their 
importance makes me desirous to know whether you clearly 
apprehend the statements and illustrations by which I have 
endeavored to make them plain. Please consult among your- 
selves during the recess of the next half hour, and let me know 
how they strike your minds." 

During the interval the assembly resolved itself into numer- 
ous conversational groups in which the themes of the Speaker's 
last remarks were discussed. Some who did not quite under- 
stand, asked and received explanations from those who did; 
and the general sentiment upon the merits of the question be- 
ing entirely harmonious, the assembly deputized one of its 
members to return its answer to the sage, at the close of the 
appointed interval. He spoke as follows: 

"Venerable teacher, we have, at your request, compared 
our several apprehensions of the philosophic statements last 
made by you, and find that their clearness and self-evident 
truthfulness, though requiring close attention to preserve the 
connection, leave little room for misunderstanding or even 
difference of apprehension as to their import. Their only ap- 
parent obscurity is merely incidental to their novelty; and as 
novelty gives place to familiarity by a few repetitions, we see 
not why these newly announced and profound truths may not 
become as easily comprehensible as the most familiar of the re- 
ceived axioms of science and philosophy. You have simply 
presented us the doctrine of Evolution resolved into its basic 
principles. In your presentation of the subject, you eliminate 
the sophistry which supposes that the thing moved, moves it- 
self; that the thing developed, develops itself; that the thing 
evolved, evolves itself; which is about as consistent as it would 
be to suppose that a man can lift himself to the moon by a ten- 
sion on the skirts of his own garments. You have substituted 



THE END OF THE AGES. 3'79 

this sophism by your philosophical dualism which supposes 
an eternal static and an eternal dynamic hypostasis; thus, 
in the last analysis, referring all motion and evolutionary 
activity to the directing as well as impelling power of the Deity. 
For this important service which you have rendered to true 
philosophy as well as to true religion, this august assembly 
bids me tender you its sincere thanks." 

The teacher resumed: 

" It gratifies me, brothers, to learn that you have so clearly 
and truly apprehended my meaning on so profound a subject. 
And now I fain would carry your minds one or two steps 
farther in this same general direction; and yet a sense of deli- 
cacy restrains me from proceeding without first frankly in- 
dicating the tendency of the next thoughts, and asking your 
permission to proceed. While lying directly in the line of our 
inquiries for the Basic Principles of the Universal Religion, 
they will exhibit the foundation axioms of the true philosophy 
of Christianity, yet not exactly as this system is now generally 
understood in the world. My manner thus far will serve as a 
pledge to you that I will eschew dogmatism and deal only with 
philosophy; and on this condition I ask the consent of non- 
Christians as well as Christians of this assembly to go on ? " 

And the multitude, including all classes, exclaimed as with 
one voice, 

" Say on, O thou of the white locks of wisdom and the voice 
of logic — say on, and we will hear thee, not only patiently but 
gladly, to the end of thy discourse!" 

Then the gray-haired Scribe continued: 

XII. DIVINE INCARNATION OR THE LOGOS MADE FLESH. 

" Though the point to which your attention is now specially 
invited is logically involved in that which precedes, its 



380 THE END OF THE AGES. 

importance is such as to demand for it a special treatment in 
order that it may be more clearly apprehended. If by the eter- 
nal generative effort of His own vitalizing, potentializing and 
organizing Spirit, God has embodied Himself in the cosmical 
universe and lower living kingdoms and forms, each in its de- 
gree, it is impossible to suppose that this divine generative 
process can stop here, especially as there is a still higher object 
as yet unattained, and for the accomplishment of which all 
these antecedent evolutions are merely tentative steps. God 
seeks to embody Himself, not only as to His potential energy 
and His mechanical skill, in the construction and movements 
of the cosmic universe, but in a still higher grade and structure 
of matter in which He can dwell in the exercise of all His 
moral perfections and even in their sympathizing manifestation 
and expression to His children. But it is only in the structure 
of Ma?i, generated and regenerated up to the plane of moral 
perfection, and thus standing as the image of God, that the 
Divine Spirit can dwell in the integrity and convergent full- 
ness of His Love and Wisdom, as in a microcosm of earth and 
Heaven. 

"This divine incarnation, or embodiment in human flesh, 
was idealized in the sacred symbols and prophetic foreshadow- 
ings of the old dispensations; in the providential structures of 
hierarchies and nations, which, in principle, are the expanded 
and detailed forms of divine manhood; in the cycles of human 
history which, as embodied seons are but enlarged re- 
presentations of the life of a man; in the architectural forms 
of temples patterned after images shown in the heavens, and 
which were representatives of the truer and higher temple in 
which the spirit of God dwells — namely, the human body. 

"How clearly philosophical and self-evident therefore, is 
the doctrine of the ultimate incarnation of God, or His 



THE END OF THE AGES. 381 

embodiment and manifestation in the flesh, and in the form of 
Man, as the crowning work of all subcelestial generations ! 
And of the being in whom this divine incarnation is accom- 
plished fully on the moral plane, whoever he may be, it may be 
truly said in every moral sense of the phraseology, that he is 
'Emmanuel, God with us;' that he is the eternal generative and 
regenerative Logos or 'Word made flesh and dwelling among 
men;' that he is 'one with the Father;' that he is the Way, 
the Truth and the Life; that in him 'dwells all the fullness of 
the Godhead bodily;' that he is the image of the invisible 
God, the firstborn of every (perfected) creature; that he is 
the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of 
His person; that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning 
and the End, the First and the Last, brought within the sphere 
of human ultimates, and the cognitions of the human mind. 

" A being thus divinely constituted in all the harmonious 
parts and faculties of his spiritual structure, would naturally, 
in passing from this to a higher and spiritual world, assume a 
dignity and precedence over all angels, principalities, powers, 
mights and dominions in the heavetis belonging to this planet (we 
say nothing now about the heavens of other planets and their 
own Specific ' Sons of God'), and would rule over them all as 
king of kings and Lord of lords, until the grand consummation 
of his work in their universal perfection, when he would 'de- 
liver up the kingdom to God, the Father, that God might 
be all in all. ' 

"My brethren of the various oriental religions, if your 
Gotama Buddha, your Krishna, your Mohammed, or any other 
of your revered leaders, answers to you this exalted ideal, con- 
tinue, we beseech you, to worship God the Father in and 
through him, as in so doing you would be honoring the same 
divine generating and regenerating Logos under the name of 



382 THE END OF THE AGES. 

your leader. At the same time, I submit to you that no 
standard that is lower than this can meet the conditions of the 
highest truth or human wants. 

XIII. CONCERNING VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 

" Not as this doctrine has been generally taught is it either 
true or honoring to God or directly useful to mankind. The 
supposition that the infinitely loving Father of all holds any of 
His erring children under an infinite curse and penalty for the 
sins they have committed, or that were committed by their 
forefathers, and that He is placated for these offenses by the 
substitution of his own innocent Son to suffer the penalty, is 
but a remnant of the ignorance and barbarism of the darker 
ages — and happily it is fast passing away — but the assumption 
by the higher, the purer and the stronger, of the burdens of 
the low, the poor and the miserable, is not only a truth of 
nature, but one of the highest and most blessed of all truths. 

" Recurring for proof to our standard source of cosmical 
types, let us ask, What would our earth and her sister planets 
be were it not for the great sun which guards and watches over 
them, and ministers to them ? They would be cold, dark, 
verdureless, uninhabited, useless, dead. And what is the sun 
doing but constantly pouring forth that light and heat which 
enliven, adorn and beautify his whole planetary family? And 
thus he is giving himself to those who are needy, exhausting his 
own vitality in their behalf; dying that they may live — and 
without a recuperative supply, in like manner, from some still 
higher source of emanation, the time would come when even 
he would become exhausted and extinct. 

" And so the Incarnate Logos, whoever he maybe, as the great 
spiritual sun under the Father, must necessarily be constantly 



THE END OF THE AGES. 383 

giving forth his own spiritual and inspiring radiations to those 
who need and will accept of them — constantly taking upon 
himself our infirmities and bearing our sickness — constantly 
giving /2/;;/i'^//' the just for the unjust, that he might bring us 
to God — in that sense (and that alone) constantly acting as our 
mediator and intercessor. And so, if we as his followers 
would show to the world that any sparks of Divinity have be- 
come incarnate in us, we too must go down to the wretched, 
the lowly and the sinful, with helping hands, assuming their 
burdens and sharing their sufferings; and those who would be 
chief among us must become the ministers and servants of 
all. This, then, is the true doctrine of vicarious atonement. 

XIV. SALVATION AND IN WHAT DOES IT CONSIST? 

'' Only in a remote and secondary sense does salvation consist 
in deliverance from an external hell, or an admission into an 
external heaven. The unalterably good and divinely strong 
man would not be unhappy in the lowest hell, and among the 
worst of demons, if he could be there; while the bad man, 
wedded to sinful gratifications, would, placed in an external 
heaven, find its very atmosphere and the society of the angels 
a source of intolerable torture. But salvation, as, indeed, the 
word in its prittial sense implies, consists in being morally and 
spiritually whole, sound, healthy. In other words, it consists in 
being regenerated up to the normal standard of interior divine- 
ness in all the spiritual faculties and powers, thus being assimi- 
lated to the sphere of angels and having the Kingdom of God 
or of heaven within. In short, it consists, when thoroughly 
complete, in being divinely incarnated and becoming a temple 
in which the spirit of God dwells. Such is the definition of 
this word and state of ' Salvation,' which seems to be given by 



384 THE END OF THE AGES. 

the universal analogies of nature the voice of reason and the 
intuitions of the human soul." 

The speaker again paused for a brief space. It was noticed 
that while he was dwelling upon the last three points, many 
persons crowded more closely around him and listened with 
unwonted interest. As he concluded, those of the oriental re- 
ligions exclaimed: " If that be Christianity, and if the divine 
man and human divinity whom you have described is truly the 
Christ; and if the view of atonement and salvation which you 
have given is really the one that is set forth in the Christian 
scheme, properly interpreted, then we have nothing to object. 
It seems entirely rational, consistent, and, we must admit, 
beautiful. We will maturely consider the subject in this new 
light; and unless some flaw in your statement develops itself, 
of which we cannot now conceive, we do not see why we may 
not admit this new doctrine, cheerfully and joyfully." 

Even many of the Christians received this new exposition of 
the scheme of Christianity with favor, and said that the speaker 
had thrown a new light upon the subject, whereby their affec- 
tions and their reason were now brought, for the first time, 
into harmony. 

But it was observed also that while many persons drew more 
closely around the speaker, a considerable number receded 
farther from him, and at the close of these remarks, were 
standing in groups, with their backs towards him, on the out- 
skirts of the congregation, talking and gesticulating in such 
manner as to indicate that they were displeased. A messenger 
was despatched to ascertain the cause of their movements, 
who soon returned and reported that he heard some of them 
say that the gray-haired scribe had never been ordained by a 
successor of the apostles and therefore he was not authorized 
to teach Christianity; others pronounced him a daring heretic 



THE END OF THE AGES. 385 

in not recognizing the Holy Trinity of three separate and 
equal intelligent personalities in one God ; others said he had frit- 
tered away the doctrine of the substitution of the sufferings of 
Christas an offeringto divine justice in satisfaction for the crimes 
of the sinner; others declaimed against the sacrilege of attempt- 
ing to explain the mysteries of Christianity by philosophy, 
whereas Christianity was obviously not a philosophy but a faith 
to be defined only by the Church; and one venerable-looking 
old gentleman, in pontifical robes, wearing a mitre on his head 
and bearing a crosier in his hand, was heard to express his ab- 
horrence of the tenet that the Universe was made by God out 
of preexistent substance, in contradiction of one of the plain- 
est declarations of the true faith, that the universe was 
made out of nothing. 

"My brethren," said the gray-haired Scribe, "these persons 
have gone out from us because they were not of us. The 
object of our present convocation is to find, if possible, the 
basic principles of a religion on which mankind universally can 
agree and meet as brethren. These dissentients, who are ex- 
pressing their dissatisfaction, must have some different object 
in view, as scarcely one of them, in his more rational moments, 
will suppose that his creed in its present form, has the slight- 
est chance of ever being accepted even by the whole of Chris- 
tendom, to say nothing of the whole world of mankind. Our 
only duty towards them is to abstain from useless disputa- 
tion with them, treat them with tenderness, and leave 
them to the all-powerful educating influences of the age, in 
full faith that they will grow more truly wise as time 
rolls on. 

" And now, brothers, permit me to finish this long discourse 
by the introduction of two or three more points which I deem 
practically important. 

25 



386 THE END OF THE AGES. 

XV. PRAYER. 

"What is the voice of nature, interpreted by correspond- 
ences, on the subject of Prayer ? 

"We have already shown that the sun, which is the source 
of physical heat and light, is in correspondence with the Deity, 
who is the great source of spiritual heat which is love, and of 
spiritual light which is Wisdom, 

"Behold then, the little flower; how at the dawn of morning 
it opens its petals to receive the light and heat of the sun. It 
is at prayer and it receives that for which it asks, that for 
which it opens its heart; growing, developing bright colors and 
becoming beautiful and fragrant as it drinks in the rays. 
Plants and trees that are shadowed on three sides send forth 
their branches most vigorously toward the side from which 
the most light comes, and if we might except the noisome fun- 
gus, the owl and bat, and the correspondences of these in the 
moral world, which love darkness rather than light because 
their deeds are evil, it is the nature of all living things to seek 
the light. 

" Prayer is therefore the natural act of the soul that feels its 
need of God's light and love, and of the protecting and ener- 
gizing influence of God's power. 

" It is the rapport of the soul with the fountain of all good, 
and the attitude of receptivity without which blessings could 
not flow to it except indirectly and for the most part inappre- 
ciably. On this natural basis then rest the words: 

" ' Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you.' And such is the basic idea 
in true philosophy of prayer. 

XVI. INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL WORSHIP. 

"In this comprehensive view of the outer creation, and its 



THE END OF THE AGES. 387 

interior divine life, the universe becomes a grand temple of 
the living God, in which the individual in his solitary rambles 
through fields and through forests, groves and gardens, on the 
mountain tops and by the ocean shore, and as he gazes at 
night into the clear starry heavens, may always be in an atti- 
tude of worship, discerning God in all things and saying in his 
heart, ' How wonderful as well as beautiful are thy works. Oh 
God; in wisdom hast thou made them all! and happy is he 
who understands the sublime science of correspondences, and 
thus in the works of God is enabled to read his eternal word, 
and in some degree to translate the same even into the lan- 
guage of man.' 

' ' But not to the full extent can man enjoy any blessing unless 
he shares it with others, and worship must hence be social as 
well as solitary in order that its full power to bless may be de- 
veloped and enjoyed. For this reason there should continue 
to be chapels and shrines of prayer, and magnificent temples, 
and solemn impressive ceremonials. 

"These places should be architecturally constructed and 
furnished according to the rules of correspondences, and all the 
ceremonials performed in them should bear relation to those 
truths and divine principles desired to be incarnated in the 
souls of the worshipers. 

" Every aisle and compartment, from vestibule to altar, and 
every alcove and frieze and architrave and column, from dome 
to crypt, should be made to tell some story or teach some 
lesson. 

' ' The walls should bear appropriate inscriptions, and be hung 
with symbolical pictures and illustrative diagrams to which the 
preacher may refer in imparting lessons in truths and divine 
principles. 

" In listening to the music of the solemn chants and the grand 



388 THE END OF THE AGES. 

anthems, and uniting in the prayers and supplications offered 
up at the altar, all congregated souls will be fused into loving 
and fraternal unity, and uplifted to the sphere of inspiring 
angels who will ever be present to bless; and in listening to the 
exposition of the divine science of all things earthly and 
heavenly in their correspondences, which the appointed 
teachers should be qualified and inspired to give, all souls will 
grow brighter and brighter, reflecting upon each other and 
upon the dark places of the outer world the sunshine of God. 
O nations of the earth, seek your unity in this universal religion 
as recorded in God's eternal embodied Logos, and seeking ye 
shall find. 

XVII. THE UNIVERSAL HIERARCHY. 

"Thehierarchy in which the universal religion will assume its 
form and embodiment, will not be the hierarchy of any sect, 
class of men or nation of the earth, and will be shaped and 
be governed by no merely human authority whatsoever. It 
will be a hierarchy in which all God's children will have a 
birthright and in which they will be free participants each one 
according to his states and qualifications, looking up to the 
light of heaven as every blade of grass and every green thing 
upon the earth looks up to the light of the sun. It will be 
the hierarchy of the moral universe, and as such it will have 
its type and exponent in the physical universe without. In its 
origin and formation to completeness it will pass, however 
slowly or rapidly, through all the typical stages of the origin 
and formation of the physical universe, and its internal govern- 
ment will be in correspondence with the government of the 
outer system of creation. In the outer universe, no particle of 
matter, no cluster or aggregation of particles, no planet, sun or 
system is accorded any artificial precedence or is allowed to 



THE END OF THE AGES. 389 

assume any arbitrary authority over others, but if any one 
leads and rules \t is simply because it is so constituted by nature 
and so developed as to be able to outshine and outdraw others. 

"And so in the organization and government of the hierarchy 
of the moral world if any one leads and rules, it must be be- 
cause of his ability to outshine others by the light of wisdom 
and outdraw others by the power of love; and in such case the 
others will necessarily find their highest freedom and delight in 
following and obeying, simply because in doing otherwise they 
would be following lesser lights and inferior influences and de- 
nying themselves the higher benefits and privileges by accept- 
ing the lower. 

"In advancing the interests of this universal hierarchy, there- 
fore, we have nothing to do directly in the way of winning 
Buddhists to Christianity or Christians to Buddhism or souls 
from any one form of religion or any one sect to another. 
Our duty is simply to let our light shine. Christian, Buddhist, 
or whatever it may be, that others may see it for whatever it 
may be worth, and to eschew all evil and do all the good we 
can in the world. Thus may we rest assured that our whole per- 
sonal duties are fulfilled and may confidently leave the rest to 
that almighty and infinitely beneficent power which from chaos 
educed the most exquisite order, and who by the perfectly nat- 
ural operation of corresponding spiritual laws will in due time 
cause his people to gravitate together in the harmonic orders 
and degrees of the universal hierarchy of the planet, in the in- 
most heart of which his own energizing and directingspirit will 
be enthroned forever. 

"My countrymen, fellow Christians, wherever scattered 
abroad, Jews, Mahomedans, Buddhists, Brahmins, Parsees, wise 
and good men of every nation and form of religion on earth — 
all brothers beloved: we have thus laid before you a few 



390 THE END OF THE AGES. 

fundadamental principles on which, it is thought, we can all stand. 
We have endeavored to verify and illustrate these principles, 
not by quotations from sacred books, but by reference to those 
'elder scriptures' which, as the universally embodied logos or word 
of God, existed before Bible, Koran, Shasta, Veda or Zenda- 
vesta; and whose correspondential teachings, when properly 
read, must necessarily be infallible. Whether we have erred in 
any of the particulars of our readings and interpretations of these 
correspondences, judge ye. We have called these principles 
simply the '■basic outli?ies of the Universal Religion.,'' Xhn's leaving 
ample room, in the filling out of the more minute and less im- 
portant details, for the exercise of every variety of genius, 
talent and taste that may prove itself truthful and of practical 
utility. We have not spoken from the standpoint of any one 
of the world's religious conventionalisms more than another. 
We have designedly attacked no man's faith, no man's sa- 
cred standards, admitting them all to contdiXn fruitful germs of 
truth, if nothing more. If any form of religious perversion, 
either as to faith or practice, feeling itself incompetent to 
stand in the light of these plain expositions of the silent teach- 
ings of God's universe, that is not our fault, and we submit 
that the tenet or practice, feeling itself thus invaded, is un- 
worthy of your confidence, and may safely be eschewed with- 
out farther argument. But we do not unconditionally ad- 
vise anyone to forsake, nor do we yet advise him to continue to 
adhere to, any form of religion, sectarian creed, or ceremony 
of worship, in which he may have been educated, and in which 
his affections have become enlisted. But we do counsel every 
one to open his eyes, his heart and his conscience, and to be 
honest with himself, with his God, and with his fellow beings, 
and then to follow the sense of truth and duty implicitly, to what- 
ever points they may lead. The rest will take care of itself. 



THE END OF THE AGES. 391 

"It is to the teachings of science and philosophy, and to the 
quickening and illuminating influences of the Holy Spirit which, 
in this End of the Ages and dawn of a New Dispensation^ are now 
descending in myriads of invisible rays into the hearts and 
minds of those prepared to receive them, that we are most cer- 
tainly to look for the inauguration of that higher religious faith 
and life of the world, that will cause all to see eye to eye, and 
bring all to the unity of the Spirit and the bonds of peace. 
Any correct interpretations of the teachings of this dawning 
light, may therefore, be expected to reveal more clearly the 
relations which all the sacred and inspired writings of antiquity 
bear to each other, and by the deeper elucidations of their 
hidden mysteries to show more fully the parts they respectively 
play in the one grand scheme of the divine government of the 
human race. Thus all these sacred and inspired books will 
ultimately become the property of all. Then by comparison, 
and a general knowledge of the central idea which runs through 
and dominates each and all, any spurious, surreptitious and false 
passages which have been foisted upon either, will become 
obvious of themselves and may be eliminated; while the true 
and divine will remain as mutual exponents and confirmations 
of each other. Then, by the application of the science of cor- 
respondences in unraveling the spiritual symbolism in 'which all 
of those old revelations were written for the most part, we 
predict it will be found that they all rest ultimately upon, and, 
more or less clearly, are reflexes of that eternal embodied 
Logos or Word of God from which, according to our light, we 
have endeavored to deduce the basic outlines of the uni- 
versal RELIGION." 

And these were the words of the gray-haired Scribe. 

It will be noticed that in this exposition, the "Scribe" has 
avoided all direct attempts to elucidate the condition of man 



392 THE END OF THE AGES. 

in the life beyond the earthly state, or to propound any theory 
concerning the cosmogony of the invisible world. This seems 
to be wise, both because that question is practically non-es- 
sential as respects the object here specially in view, and be- 
cause the establishment of even a generally concurrent faith 
upon so abstruse a subject could scarcely be considered as 
possible at present. Even this sublime mystery, however, is 
looming within the purview of the science and philosophy of 
the age; and we predict that great and marvelous light will 
soon break forth from psychological science and from the 
Bible considered in connection with the wonderful symbolism 
of the old pyramid of Cheops and with the allegorical constella- 
tions of the heavens, now for the first time beginning to be in- 
terpreted. These teachings, being understood, will go far to 
explain mysteries anciently revealed, but afterwards lost and 
concealed for ages, and to give us a far deeper insight of the 
divine order, government, and cyclic evolutions of the spiritual 
heavens, and of their mediatorial influence upon the inhabi- 
tants of the earth. 

And now my task is done. My book is finished. He that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit saith unto the 
churches, the nations, the world. 

Go forth, my little winged messenger, and with trumpet 
tongue call men to duty, to harmony, and to brotherly love; 
and O God, make my people wise and save my beloved country 
from the calamities which threaten; save the nations that are 
burthened with effete and demoralizing forms of government, 
of society and of religion, and usher in the long promised era 

of UNIVERSAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

THE END. 



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